Local law enforcement officers and elementary school students descended upon Walmart early Saturday morning for one collective goal: Christmas shopping.
Operation TOYS brings law enforcement officers together in the weeks leading up to Christmas to shop with underprivileged children.
Elementary school counselors keep an eye out over the course of the year to see which students would need or benefit from the event.
"Then we call and see if they want to partake," said officer Seth Wigle with the Jefferson City Police Department.
Wigle said about 83 children signed up for the event and each got to spend $150 as they want. For some, that included buying presents for others as well as themselves.
Once again, the event looked slightly different because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In years past, law enforcement members would have breakfast with the students and drive to Walmart together. However, the store requested for a second year not everybody come at once.
This year, they met at Walmart and went shopping from there.
However, one element returned this year. Volunteers with Elks Lodge 103 met the shoppers after checking out and helped wrap any presents the child wanted.
The lodge is the largest single contributor to Operation TOYS, said Eileen Scrivner, who is a past exulted ruler and remains a trustee for the lodge.
She helps write the grant the allows the lodge to contribute $2,500 each year. As part of the grant, the Elks need to be involved in the event that receives the money.
This year, about eight Elks members attended to help wrap.
"We love it," she said. "Mandy was getting hugs from the kids and they weren't shy about that. It was wonderful."
Wigle said members of JCPD, Capitol Police, the Missouri Highway Patrol, Cole County Sheriff, Tipton Correctional Facility, Jefferson City Correctional Center and Lincoln Police attended the shopping.
"It's usually pretty easy to get volunteers for this," he said. "It's fun to go shopping with the kids."
That's the best part of the event for the officers, Wigle said, getting to spend time with local children.
"You get those kids that are shopping for their brother or sister and doing all this cool stuff," he said. "Being selfless like that when they don't get much themselves. And it's fun to see how excited most of them get to get cool stuff that they wouldn't have gotten otherwise. It's a great opportunity for those kids to just get to have fun and be kids."
Walmart also plays a part in getting donations from local vendors to put in small gift bags for the students, setting things up the day of and organizing with the volunteers, Walmart team lead Leanne Drury said.
"It did fairly good," she said. "They pretty much spent all their gift cards so that's good for us and getting our sales up and for helping them out as well."
Scrivner said what isn't used for Operation TOYS will still go toward presents for the students at Little Explorers Discover Center.
"Santa will come, and they'll all get gifts," she said.