<p>When an 8-year-old Nineveh boy decided to raise money for the county’s annual Shop with a Cop event, he had no idea his family would be one that needed it.</p>
<p>Earlier this year, Cash Jones decided he was going to cut his 13-inch locks to donate hair to Wigs for Kids, a nonprofit organization that collects hair and donates it to childhood cancer patients. But, he also decided he wanted his mom, Ashley Fierce, to record that journey and post videos to social media in an effort to raise even more money for two other causes he cared about: animal shelters and Shop with a Cop.</p>
<p>During the event, each kid gets $250 to spend, money the Johnson County Fraternal Order of Police, an organization of about 120 police officers and sheriff’s deputies, work all year to raise. Several local organizations and people, such as Jones, donate every year, specifically for Shop with a Cop.</p>[sc:text-divider text-divider-title="Story continues below gallery" ]Click here to purchase photos from this gallery
<p>Jones raised more than $1,000 in just five days. A couple hundred went to each the Brown County Humane Society and Muncie Animal Shelter, and $605 went to Shop with a Cop.</p>
<p>Months later, in September, a domestic battery incident turned his family’s world upside down.</p>
<p>Now a single mom with little to her name, Fierce wasn’t sure how she was going to give her three kids a Christmas this year.</p>
<p>Last week, the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office, knowing the situation, reached out and asked if Jones and his family would like to come see Shop with a Cop in action, so that he could see what his hard-earned money made possible and maybe help some of the kids pick out gifts.</p>
<p>Before dawn Saturday morning, 38 kids, their parents or guardians and about 60 officers from law enforcement agencies in Johnson County and beyond filed into the Meijer on State Road 135 in Greenwood.</p>
<p>When Fierce and the kids arrived, they learned Jones and his two younger siblings would be shopping too.</p>
<p>Fierce broke down. The last few weeks were hard, she said.</p>
<p>“Just to see them … ‘Mommy, I want this. Mommy, I want that.’ And I just kept saying, ‘Ask Santa. Ask Santa,’ and praying that he’d deliver,” Fierce said, tears welling up her eyes. “’Honey, we’ll be OK. Santa will take care of everything.’”</p>
<p>Sheriff Duane Burgess and his wife, Dee Ann, took Jones shopping. He wanted very little and needed even less, if you asked him.</p>
<p>“How about this?” the Burgesses would ask, holding up pants or shoes or really anything.</p>
<p>“No, I don’t need that,” Jones responded nearly every time.</p>
<p>“I thought this was for the other kids,” he said.</p>
<p>He found a magic set he thought he might like and placed it in the cart.</p>
<p>“I guarantee you on the way home he’s going to be thinking of ways he can use that magic set to help other people,” Fierce said. “That’s just who he is; such a cool kid. He never ceases to amaze me. It’s always somebody else first.”</p>
<p>The shopping trip had fun, lighthearted moments too. Burgess was determined to get Jones into some Green Bay Packers gear, but he wasn’t having it. Any time the sheriff would hold up something donning that green and yellow emblem, Jones would laugh and shake his head.</p>
<p>He’s more into baseball, he said. The Chicago Cubs is his team.</p>
<p>“Games and Nerf guns, that’s about it,” Jones said of his Christmas list.</p>
<p>The Burgesses delivered. By the end of the shopping trip, his cart was overflowing with Xbox games, four or five Nerf guns and all the clothes he’d need to stay warm this winter. Jones’s face lit up as he showed his mom his gifts one by one.</p>
<p>His 5-year-old sister, Layla, strolled by with a stuffed unicorn the size of a Golden Retriever.</p>
<p>“Uni,” she named it. “It’s a girl.”</p>
<p>His little brother Hank, 3, was having the time of his life bossing his chauffeurs around.</p>
<p>Boots … no. Underwear … no. By the end of Hank’s shopping trip, he was showing off his giant fresh carrot and frozen pizza. Fierce wasn’t surprised.</p>
<p>Cash Jones’s face lit up again watching his younger siblings show his mom their gifts. He knows his donation made Christmas possible for his family and so many others, like Jaydin, Jordan and Patty Hale.</p>
<p>Patty, 7, was antsy while she waited to be paired with a cop. She peeked around the corner of an aisle where several of the local law enforcement officers were hanging out, also waiting. Her face lit up, like the kids in Christmas commercials who catch a glimpse of Santa. Her family’s Christmas miracle was about to come true.</p>
<p>“Baby doll, baby doll, Barbie, Barbie,” she said she wanted, jumping up and down.</p>
<p>Jordan, 10, was on the hunt for a good basketball.</p>
<p>Jaydin, 12, had a long list that included fashion accessories, but she wasn’t set on any one item.</p>
<p>“I got to catch it with my eyes,” she said.</p>
<p>Jaime Hale watched as her kids shared details of their Christmas lists. Without Shop with a Cop, they likely wouldn’t have gotten any of it, she said.</p>
<p>“It’s a blessing, honestly, a big stress reliever,” said Hale, of Whiteland. “I didn’t think it was going to be possible this year.”</p>
<p>But it was, thanks to Cash Jones and so many others who make Christmas a reality for families in need year after year.</p>
<p>“You’ve got a good heart,” Sheriff Burgess said, patting Jones’s back.</p>
<p>“It’s a good feeling. I like for him — for all these kids — to be happy and smile,” Burgess said.</p>
