‘Shop with a Cop’ brings holiday cheer: Hear one family’s story.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WTVQ) – Christmas came early for more than 200 kids in Lexington.

Saturday morning, they picked out toys in the annual Shop-with-a-Hero event hosted by the Fraternal Order of Police Bluegrass Lodge #4 at Meijer, but for one mom, it meant more than the items donated, but the joy of seeing her kids smiling.

Nerf guns, cars and a Superman man tee shirt were just a few of the things kindergartner Blaze Young stuffed in his cart Saturday morning.

Detective Kristyn Klingshirn says 234 kids got to spend 150-dollars each on whatever they wanted. Some were chosen by their Lexington elementary schools and others by officers themselves.

“It’s just a really good experience for all of us,” Klingshirn says. “It’s fun for the officers to go around and act like kids and get to help them pick out toys.”

Klingshirn says besides spreading holiday cheer to families in need, she hopes the event will also help build relationships.

“A lot of children, if they’ve interacted with a police officer before, it’s probably not a good experience,” Kingshirn says. “It’s either a collision or something that was probably scary for them.”

That’s true for Young and his sister.

His mom, Cheryl, says she’s a domestic violence survivor and her kids witnessed her ex-boyfriend nearly beat her to death. She spent this year in physical therapy, re-learning how to walk and talk after suffering brain damage.

“We’re all still healing from this. I’m physically healing,” Cheryl says. “They’re mentally healing. I just appreciate everything that Officer Sparks did today. They do too. This will make their Christmas so much better because I wasn’t able to provide for mine this year.”

Young had one last message to share with everyone, “Merry Christmas.”