{"id":110686,"date":"2018-12-17T09:20:49","date_gmt":"2018-12-17T14:20:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=110686"},"modified":"2018-12-17T09:20:49","modified_gmt":"2018-12-17T14:20:49","slug":"patrol-gives-back-to-families-for-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2018\/12\/17\/patrol-gives-back-to-families-for-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Patrol gives back to families for Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>DAVE MOSIER\/<\/strong><em>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Troopers from the Van Wert Post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol were at Walmart on Sunday afternoon for the post\u2019s \u201cShop with a Cop\u201d Christmas shopping program.<\/p>\n<p>According to Post Commander Lt. Johnathan Gray, two families were identified in conjunction with the local Salvation Army to participate in the program. The families included a total of six youngsters.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_110687\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-110687\" style=\"width: 350px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-110687\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/OSHP-Shop-with-a-Cop-at-Walmart-shopping-12-2018.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"290\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-110687\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>A trooper and dispatcher help a local family shop for clothes for Christmas.<\/strong> <em>OSHP photos<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cThis year, we spoke with the families, and they all wanted to shop with us,\u201d Lt. Gray said, noting that most of the troopers and dispatchers who came out to shop &#8212; nearly the entire post &#8212; were there on their own time.<\/p>\n<p>The gifts on Sunday afternoon included clothes and shoes, a child safety seat, remote control cars, video games, and even a bicycle, while Lt. Gray said the troopers and dispatchers also purchased batteries for devices out of their own pockets so that didn\u2019t have to come out of the families\u2019 gift allowance. He also noted that post staff also donated extra money for the child safety seat.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe always try to reach out during the holidays and make someone\u2019s holiday a little easier,\u201d the post commander added. \u201cWe understand that, in this world, not everybody is as fortunate as we are, and so there are days where it\u2019s nice to help somebody out and they don\u2019t have to worry about having a good holiday.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The post commander also noted that nearly all of the troopers and dispatchers at Walmart on Sunday either lived in the community or close to it, giving them a sense of community ownership.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s our community as well, not just where we work,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cWe\u2019re all about traffic safety, but there are times we need to be seen in the community as part of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Walmart provides some assistance with shopping, as well as a dedicated register during check-out.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_110688\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-110688\" style=\"width: 545px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-110688\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/OSHP-Shop-with-a-Cop-program-group-12-2018.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"545\" height=\"307\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-110688\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>Van Wert Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers and dispatchers pose at Walmart during the Shop with a Cop program on Sunday.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DAVE MOSIER\/independent editor Troopers from the Van Wert Post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol were at Walmart on Sunday afternoon for the post\u2019s \u201cShop with a Cop\u201d Christmas shopping program. According to Post Commander Lt. Johnathan Gray, two families were identified in conjunction with the local Salvation Army to participate in the program. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-03 13:36:11","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110686\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}