San Jose students earn a day to Shop with a Cop

SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) -- ABC7's Matt Keller emceed the 11th Annual Shop with a Cop Heroes and Helpers Holiday shopping spree in San Jose Tuesday morning.

More than 20 police departments and organizations helped put on the event.

The officers and more than 150 children attended breakfast at Santa Clara University. Then, they went holiday shopping with a $150 gift card at Target on Coleman Avenue in San Jose-- thanks to the Shop With a Cop Foundation.

Nydia Smith with the Santa Clara County Probation Department says, "It warms my heart. I'm so moved by it. I love it."

One of the goals is to foster relationships between the kids and police officers.

"It's a day where I get to have a positive encouragement on the community and build relationships with them. So hopefully in a setting outside of this, it can be just like this," said CHP officer Dave LaRock.

These kids earned their way here. They take part in a reading challenge and must make significant growth and have perfect attendance to qualify.

This is the first year for students at Mckinley Elementary and principal Julie Aguirre says, "They've shown huge growth and started carrying books around with them at school and you can tell it's really developing that life-long love of reading in our students beyond just the goal of being able to attend today."

For more stories, photos and videos on the holidays, click here.