Middle, high school students also helped by public safety team effort
Representatives of city, county and state public safety agencies were able to make Christmas brighter for several local children as part of this year’s Shop With a Hero program.
Through the program, now in its second year, a number of children who attend the county’s elementary schools receive a gift card they can use to do Christmas shopping alongside a police officer or firefighter.
This year, the first responder-supervised shopping trips were broken into multiple rounds over the past two Saturdays, confirmed Ellijay Police Capt. Ray Grace.
“Due to COVID restrictions we (did) three smaller events with three groups. I was planning on doing it one way or another, even if we had to do five kids at a time for several weeks,” said Grace, who manages Shop With a Hero fundraising and preplanning with Renea Green, a Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) special agent.
A total of 63 local third, fourth and fifth grade students got to shop with a cop or firefighter. The program targets children who need a little something special this Christmas, Green noted. School counselors help to pick participants, she added.
“It could be a kid who’s struggling in school or who’s been picked on or has just moved here,” Green said. “Even with COVID, we ended up (serving) more kids than we did last year.”
During the festive shopping trips to the East Ellijay Walmart, representatives from the Ellijay Police Department were joined by employees of the Gilmer Sheriff’s Office, East Ellijay Police, Georgia State Patrol, Georgia Department of Natural Resources and the GBI, as well as firefighters from Gilmer County Public Safety. Food was provided to participants by Shane’s Rib Shack, Marco’s Pizza and Mr. P’s, Grace noted.
“They came to Ellijay Elementary School first and were fed either lunch or dinner. All the groups got a full-blown police and fire escort to Walmart. The kids absolutely loved that and it is a cool sight to see,” he added.
Each child was given a $175 Walmart gift card and $75 of that had to be spent on clothing items, Grace said.
“As soon as we got started it just clicked. From there, it all went pretty effortlessly,” he added.
Grace and Green had both been concerned about funding for the program that was new last year, but had a COVID-free time frame in which donations from local sponsors were collected. The circumstances were different this year, but the planning team was pleasantly surprised by the local businesses who contributed funding.
“We set up a Shop With a Hero account, and 100 percent of that money goes to Gilmer County kids. Last year was a lot of legwork, but I think everybody saw what we did then and were already familiar with it this year,” Grace said.
Shop With a Hero also reached out to Clear Creek Middle and Gilmer High School students in different ways.
“We went shopping for nine middle schoolers. We’re doing a Secret Santa for them this year, and the Gilmer Optimist Club wrapped those gifts for us,” said Green.
“For the high school, we bought hygiene items. They really needed things like toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo and things like that. We delivered 68 hygiene bags, and we’re also going to do Christmas dinner for 20 families (with kids at) the high school,” added Grace.
The program would not be possible without the generosity of local sponsors and the teamwork required to make it happen, Grace confirmed. Several spouses and significant others of police and fire personnel also help with the shopping, he noted.
Green, who was raised here, shared that being able to give back to the same community where she grew up makes the outreach effort “extra special.”
“The reward is seeing the smiles on those kids’ faces. We’re hoping to come back bigger and better next year,” she added.