LINC sends kids shopping with their friendly, neighborhood cop
For a day, Kansas City law officers traded police cruisers for shopping carts.
Their partners were children, sent from LINC and Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church. The officers walked this beat with calculators to help the kids push the limits of the $100 gift cards for the Target store at Ward Parkway Shopping Center Nov. 30.
“This is cool. I never shopped with police before,” said 10-year-old Janiyaih, one of about 30 children in the LINC/Morning Star entourage.
Her twin sister, Jamiyaih, said she had visions of new shoes.
Their friend Erin, 6, was thinking pink hoodie, with a unicorn.
“I’m feeling good,” Erin said. “I get to go to Target and pick out clothes.”
LINC was happy to join other social service groups and school districts in taking part in the holiday event organized by the Kansas City Fraternal Order of Police to bring families some comfort and joy, as well as give children, their families and the police officers a chance to get to know each other.
“It allows our children and our youth to see that cops are human too,” said LINC Executive Vice President Janet Miles-Bartee. “They start to form relationships as they’re shopping. They’re finding out that police officers have children, they have wives, they have families, they like macaroni and cheese.”
Yes, there is joy in the children’s faces, said KC Fraternal Order of Police President Brad Lemon.
“But if you’re looking around and see the officers,” he said, “you see smiles on our officers’ faces too.”
Lemon was standing in the mall out front of the entrance to Target as a variety of police officers looked as eager to get matched up for shopping as the lineup of children waiting to go in.
“We work in an incredible community,” Lemon said. “In a year like this where Covid happened, jobs have been lost and things are getting really expensive, this gives us an opportunity to give back to the community and it gives our officers a chance to smile and remember why they do this job.”
Before heading to the mall, LINC and the church gathered children and several of their parents for pizza and treats at Morning Star’s Youth and Family Life Center at 27th and Prospect Avenue — a center that has been a hub for community relief and engagement throughout the pandemic.
The Rev. John Modest Miles of Morning Star retraced the statistics in what he said has been a time of extraordinary need. The LINC and Morning Star partnership has distributed nearly 2 million pounds of food at the center, helped process more than $1 million in utility bill assistance and given more than 25,000 Covid-19 vaccinations.
Kansas City’s “Kids and Cops” program is another opportunity for relief, especially in helping ease the stress on families as children are recovering lost ground at school.
“We have so many families that don’t have what is needed for their children to go to school or be present in school feeling good about themselves,” Rev. Miles said.
“This is a way of saying to the children we love you, we appreciate you, we support you.”
