Police playing Santa for kids

BRAZIL, Ind. (WTHI) - This month marks a time of unparalleled giving in our year. For one Wabash Valley police force that means taking time from serving and protecting to give.

The Christmas season is a time when children send a letter to a man in red in hopes of finding a gift under their tree on Christmas morning
    
But in Brazil, Indiana this year a man in blue or sometimes brown took up the mantle of old Kris Kringle for the Shop With A Cop program.

"Right now we're gonna go around tonight we have 50 children that we're going to take to Wal-Mart and shop for Christmas gifts for them," Clint McQueen of the Brazil Police Department said.

Turning the walls of Wal-Mart into Santa’s workshop for little Jacob Devoe. Jacob and his family moved to Brazil this year so his mother Mary could find work

"We're rich in love, so we were going to have a minimal Christmas and the kids were ok with that, they understood that,” Mary Devoe explained.

But when the Brazil Police Department and Clay County Sheriff accepted the Devoes this year it gave them a Christmas they weren't expecting.

"Its helped me to allow the kids to have things I wouldn't necessarily be able to afford this year," she explained.

If you think little Jacob shopped just for toys you couldn't be more wrong

"(They’re) taking the funds and using them wisely, you know so they feel like they're benefitting with their play time, but that they have things they need," Mary said.

Shoes, coats and clothes waited for Jacob under this shopping tree. A Christmas thanks to Santa's helpers in blue and the community that chose to give.

"There's no way I can repay (them), but I just pray that (their) generosity and grace can returned someway somehow,” a very thankful Mary Devoe said.