EPHRATA — It’s not even November yet, and Ephrata’s Shop with a Cop event is already fully funded. 

“Honestly, it doesn’t surprise me,” said Ephrata Interim Police Chief Troy Froewiss. “The businesses and citizens of Ephrata have a long history of stepping up when things are needed. I didn't expect such generous donations so quickly, but I was confident that we were going to be able to make Shop with a Cop happen. It’s just the financial part of it happened a lot quicker than I expected.” 

The donations, from Granco Federal Credit Union and Millard Sales, totaled $5,000, Froewiss said. Other businesses reached out after that, Froewiss said, and he suggested ways that they could support the EPD at other times of the year, or that they could save their donations for next year. 

“The city is incredibly grateful to both Millard Sales and Granco Federal Credit Union for their donation,” said Ephrata City Clerk Rob Miller. 

In years past, Ephrata’s Shop with a Cop has been mostly financed through a grant from Walmart, according to Columbia Basin Herald archives. This year, however, the Walmart grant wasn’t available, Froewiss said. 

“Walmart's been a great partner with Shop of the Cop and other things,” Froewiss said. “So it was kind of a surprise that we could no longer apply for that grant and receive that funding … Walmart is in other ways still going to be a part of Shop with a Cop. It just won't be through the grant providing the funding.” 

Shop with a Cop is an annual tradition in which local police departments connect with families that would otherwise have trouble affording Christmas presents. In Ephrata, the families are found through local schools and churches, EPD Office Manager Jennifer Hansen told the Columbia Basin Herald last year. 

The officers take the families to Walmart for a shopping spree where the kids can pick out their own presents. The presents are then loaded into a patrol car and driven, with the children, to where their families are waiting, and the officers and families go out to dinner and wrap the gifts, Froewiss said. 

The children who are selected often spend more of the budgeted shopping money on others than on themselves, Froewiss said. 

“(There) was an 8- or 9-year-old girl I took shopping two years ago, and I had to remind her that she needed to get herself stuff, because she was buying presents for her sibling and her parents the whole time,” he said. “Didn’t care about herself.” 

Shop with a Cop is one way police departments connect with the communities they serve in a positive setting, Miller said. 

“Generally the officers see people on one of their worst days, not the best, so this is a chance to turn that around and let them go out and see kids smiling and happy,” he said. “It's a wonderful event that connects young people with law enforcement, and helps them have a good holiday as well.” 

    Soap Lake Police Chief Patrick Canady slaps the cuffs on the Grinch at last year’s Shop with a Cop event in Ephrata.