On December 8, 2012, Target and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, Compton Station, collaborated on the annual Heroes and Helpers campaign. Heroes and Helpers is a campaign in which Target partners with local community heroes and helpers such as law enforcement officers, firefighters, teachers, and others to encourage community children to become Heroes and Helpers. This year, Compton Station and Target chose Tibby Elementary School in Compton to be a part of the Heroes and Helpers campaign.
The students at Tibby Elementary were originally going to be tasked with drawing a picture that included the Target bull's-eye logo, wherein the best twenty entries would win a prize. However, Ms. Ellerbe, the principal, insisted that her students at Tibby Elementary were writers and would step up to the challenge of an essay writing contest. The Kindergarten through fifth grade students were excited and eager to enter their essays into the contest titled, "What do I want to be when I grow up and why?" The students had no idea what the winning prizes would be. After pouring through scores of essays, twenty winners were chosen; 4-Kindergarteners, 3 first graders, 3-second graders, 3-third graders, 3-fourth graders, and 4-fifth graders. Each winner was given a congratulatory letter stating that he or she was one of twenty winners chosen from the essay writing contest and that he or she needed to be present at the Compton Target store on Saturday, December 8, 2012 at 8:30am to claim the prize. By 8:35am, all twenty winners were present at Target eagerly waiting to see what he or she had won. The parents were privy to learning what their children wanted to be when the children grew up and were just as excited to learn that their children won a $100 shopping spree at Target! The children's faces lit up when they learned that they would be able to pick out anything they wanted in the store, without their parents' influence, up to $100. This moment and this shopping trip was all about them, to celebrate their hard work and excellent writing skills.
We look forward to working with Target next year in the Heroes and Helpers campaign.
Deputy Quiana Birkbeck at TARGET with students from Tibby Elementary School
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