Operation Blue Santa makes a splash in Valdese

The idea behind Valdese Police Department’s Operation Blue Santa is simple. Connect elementary school children with our police officers during the holidays.

The program’s second annual event week-before-last couldn’t have been more memorable.

School counselors established a Blue Santa Lottery for kids who could use a little extra this Christmas. The officers were assigned one child. We shared a group dinner provided by East Valdese Baptist Church. After a few games and clean up, we rode church vans to Walmart in Morganton, and the officers shopped with their assigned child.

We divided the group of about 30 children into two groups. I tagged along with the Tuesday group. And because we were a few officers short, I was assigned a fifth-grade girl. The shopping lists we were given were worked out beforehand with their parents and the guidance counselor at Valdese Elementary.

I’ve never shopped with a little girl before.

I loved shopping with our now-grown sons, but shopping with a girl is really different. I was embarrassed to buy underwear, but my little girl had underwear on her list, so we bought underwear.

Shoes were on her list, so we bought a snazzy pair of tennis shoes, size 6 ½. We bought two outfits, though I’m still not sure what constitutes an “outfit.”

She needed a winter coat. She tried one on, but it seemed to fit funny.

She said, “Let’s ask a professional woman what she thinks.”

Her assistant principal happened to be nearby. We asked her, does this coat fit okay? When you lift your arms, the coat lifts up and exposes your midsection. Is that normal? Yes, we were told, that was normal, so we put the coat in the cart.

I admitted to my fifth-grade girl that I was not an expert on women’s fashion.

She looked me in the eye and said, “Don’t worry. I am.”

And she was. We bought lavender pajamas. Toothpaste, brushes, and mouthwash.

In every aisle, we met and greeted police officers in full uniform with their kids doing the same thing: buying necessary clothes and hygiene items.

And of course, we bought toys.

My little girl bought art supplies, a beaded-bracelet kit, and a box of science experiments. The last thing she bought might have been the most important: a special gift for her dad.

We had a blast.

I had the credit card that was to pay for this, so I stood by two cash registers as the officers and kids unloaded their carts. The checkout women kept saying, “I can’t believe you’re doing this. This is the nicest thing.”

And it was.

I was moved to tears.

Afterwards, more than one of the officers confided that their wives were mad at them. They had never once taken their own kids shopping, and now they were shopping for a total stranger at Valdese Elementary?

Some patterns are worthy of reform.

Another officer told me he had a rambunctious boy who kept knocking things off the shelves. “I almost hand cuffed him to the shopping cart,” he admitted.

The department administrative assistant, Harley Chesek-Brown, had a very excited little boy in tow. She’s used to shopping with children. She warned him up front: “If you step away from me, I’m going to put you in the cart, and that’s where you’ll stay while we shop.”

He understood that rule, but he couldn’t follow it.

Fifteen feet inside the front door, he bolted to look at the poinsettias. She put him in the cart, and from this vantage, they covered the whole store. Neither will soon forget this night.

Harley adds new meaning to the words “Protect and Serve.”

After shopping, we headed to Waldensian Presbyterian Church where we met parents. Our deacons served hot chocolate.

Blue Santa is not a scheme to buy kids a bunch of presents. Blue Santa is an operation devised to build relationships and lower walls that separate our police from our youngest citizens.

When these children see uniformed police officers out in public or in their school, hopefully they will remember this night of friendship. And when these cops see these kids, they might just take a knee when they say hello.

Police departments have been running Operation Blue Santa programs for years. In San Antonio, they’ve been at it for 49-seasons and they serve nearly 8,000 kids.

While the toys matter, Valdese Police Chief Marc Sharpe stresses the relationships not only between the officers and their children, but the Valdese Police Department and our whole town.

Thirty-three Valdese organizations, churches, individuals, businesses, foundations, and anonymous donors underwrote this event with in-kind and financial gifts.

The whole community came together and did something beautiful with and for our children.

God knows we all need as many friends in this life as possible. And while programs like Operation Blue Santa don’t go far enough to build bridges that unite divided groups, it’s a start.