Volunteers help underprivileged children shop for holiday fare

Volunteers from Schaumburg to Sleepy Hollow put smiles on hundreds of little faces Saturday at two local Wal-Marts.

The Elgin and East Dundee locations together hosted about 350 underprivileged youths who were each given $75 to buy holiday gifts for themselves and their families.

The Elgin Wal-Mart hosted about 230 children from the Two Rivers Head Start Agency in Elgin, a preschool program for high-risk, low-income children.

Volunteers, most of them from local high schools, started pouring in as early as 6:30 a.m. to help the kids check off items on their list.

This year's Christmas Shopping Spree, an annual event put on by the Woodfield Area Children's Organization, drew about 400 volunteers.

Lauren Kebusek and Amanda Ravas, seniors at St. Charles East High School, accompanied Angel Alvarez-Arroyo as he picked out gifts for himself and his family.

"It's a great time, one of the best service projects," Kebusek said.

Ravas agreed.

"I think it's awesome. It's a great way to improve Spanish," she said.

As many as 70 percent of the Two Rivers children speak Spanish, and many of the volunteers, including Kebusek and Ravas, were bilingual.

Angel wouldn't say what his favorite gift was but pointed to a box of Hot Wheels he was clutching.

At the East Dundee Wal-Mart, police officers from East Dundee, West Dundee, Gilberts, Sleepy Hollow and Carpentersville joined forces to help about 100 kids check off their lists during the fourth annual Shop With a Cop event.

Many of the children that are nominated for Shop With a Cop come from foster homes, and a morning breakfast at the Fox Valley Baptist Church helps the kids get more comfortable with the officers, East Dundee officer and event organizer Louie Kloepper said.

"We take them away from their families. We're cops. They're scared of us," he said. "This gives them a chance to see we're actually human."

And it worked.

Parkview Elementary student Tyler Mount hurried from one toy to the next, stopping briefly in front of the board game Battleship.

"That's what I always wanted!" Tyler said.

What did he think of the officers who volunteered their time and raised about $20,000 so he could get what he wanted for Christmas?

"They're pretty nice," he said.