An accordion player, reminiscent of one found in an Italian trattoria, filled the rodeo hall with music as the fourth “Shop with a Cop” event got underway on Sat. evening, Aug. 3. Aptly named, “Italian Nights,” the back-to-school fundraiser at the Clovis Rodeo Grounds, began at 5:30 p.m., enough time to allow guests the opportunity to socialize and examine the auction items before sitting down to a tasty Italian dinner.
“This is the third year we’ve had the fundraiser dinner,” says Codi Ricken, who initially started the annual event.”The first year we sold T-shirts, but I knew we could do better.” The decision was made to hold fundraising dinners with live and silent auctions, raffles, music and dancing.
The first dinner had a Bar-b-que theme followed the second year by a Mexican theme. Every penny of the profits goes straight to providing kids with needed school supplies for the coming school year. Students are paired with police officers and a week before school starts they go shopping at Target. About $250-$300 is spent on each child.
Officer Gee, who participated in a similar program in the past, felt that it was well worth the effort. “It was a lot of fun,” she said.
“It’s really good…we enjoy doing this. It’s good for the kids and a good program to foster a great relationship with the police department,” said Ricken. “We reach out to school district to find children for the program.”
“This is how the community supports each other,” said Kris Diaz, the evening’s emcee.
The silent auction showcased a variety of gift baskets, wines, jewelry, gift cards and delectable desserts. Several guests were happy recipients of raffle winnings and the live auction stirred up lively bidding that included “A Day with the Clovis Swat Team.”
If you have important documents you want to safely discard, keep Sat., Aug. 24, 2019, in mind. That’s the date for the Clovis Police Department has “Shredfest 2019” at the Clovis Rodeo Grounds parking lot on Clovis Ave.
From 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., free on-site document shredding will be offered as well as the distribution of identity theft prevention materials. Each person can shred 6-8 banker boxes of documents, plus meet Clovis Police K-9s and see the Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) armored vehicle. For more information visit https://allevents.in/clovis/shredfest-august-2019.
Sorry, the Shredfest does not include businesses.