Shop with a Cop

Darrell Cortez  is  a retired Police Officer with the San Jose Police Dept. He  is the founder and Executive Director of the Shop with a Cop Foundation of  Silicon  Valley ( SWACSV).  SWACSV is an all volunteer non-profit with an  8 member board .The mission of SWACSV is to provide charitable  relief  for children in traumatic crisis due to the loss of a parent from domestic violence and other tragedies and away from the home. They also advocate for reading literacy for elementary school students 3rd to 6th grade with a "readers are leaders" reading campaign at Santee Elementary School in East San Jose. It is a program that helps close the achievement gap for at -risk, low income students. Each year, the high performing students  engaged in  the reading program "earn" their way to a Holiday shopping spree at Target. Each child is accompanied with a uniformed police officer to shop for Christmas gifts for themselves and family members. This event brings families and police officers together in a positive  setting to  build trust between the police and the community.

Since 2008, SWACSV   has assisted over 1000  children from the San Jose with their outreach programs.