Police, Wal-Mart treat kids
Raniellia Gunn’s holiday wishes came true this year thanks to the Boynton Beach Police Department, Officer Evan Esteves and Wal-Mart.
Esteves and Raniellia, 7, were partnered up Tuesday at the department’s annual Shop With a Cop event, where officers take local students shopping for the holidays. At the event, the officers are given a $100 gift card — paid for by Wal-Mart through grants — to spend on gifts the students pick out for their families and themselves. If they go over budget, the officer pays out of pocket. Esteves and Raniellia weren’t too good at budgeting. In fact, they were about $70 over. But Esteves didn’t mind.
“I really do believe in giving back to the community,” Esteves said. “It’s worth it in the end, especially if you can make a difference in a little one’s life.”
Shop With a Cop is an annual event held by Boynton police, and surrounding agencies do the same. In Boynton, guidance counselors from all city elementary schools chose the students to shop. After the shopping was completed, the students and officers had lunch in the parking lot.
Raniellia, a Poinciana Elementary second-grader, came with a list of gifts she wanted to buy her family and herself. Raniellia lives with her grandmother and wanted to help her in buying presents.
Raniellia and Esteves combed the store on Federal Highway for gifts for her brothers, ages 6 and 9, her 6-year-old sister, her mother, her father and her grandparents. And when searching for a gift for her mother, Esteves taught Raniellia a little lesson.
The two were looking at purses, and Esteves found one with several compartments.
“In that one, you can hold a lot of credit cards,” he said. “That’s very important when you get old like me.”
For herself, Raniellia chose a Barbie and a Shopkins character necklace. She was so thrilled with the necklace Alexandra Seltzer she wore it immediately. She also bought walkie-talkies for her and her sister to use, and picked out a Slim Jim and a bag of Takis chips to snack on.
Tuesday was one of the police department’s many holiday events scheduled for December. On Wednesday night, Santa and his elves (Boynton police officers) planned to deliver thousands of toys to M&M Appliance, 915 N. Federal Highway, for children served by the Children’s Healing Institute.
The department spent the past two weeks collecting the toys and gathered about $10,000 worth. Also, the department will host two more Shop With a Cop events on Thursday at Target and Tuesday at the Wal-Mart on Old Boynton Road.
“It’s important to give back to the community,” Esteves said. “Because without them, we have nothing.”