Derrek Vaughn | The Valdosta Daily TimesChiquita Flucas, assistant manager of Valdosta Cinemas, hands Leslie Jacobs, founder of Jacob's Ladder, a check and Randall Hancock, Shop with a Cop director, receives a check from Jim Cody, Valdosta Cinemas general manager. Both organizations received $6,400 as part of Georgia Theatre Company's Cinema for a Cause event.

VALDOSTA — For anyone who bought a movie ticket Sunday, Sept. 23, at Valdosta Cinemas, 100 percent of ticket and concession purchases were donated Tuesday to local charity groups.

Jim Cody, general manager at Valdosta Cinemas, presented checks to Leslie Jacobs, founder of Jacobs’ Ladder, and Valdosta Police Officer Randall Hancock, program director of Shop With a Cop, inside the movie theater. Variety of Georgia also received a check.

The organizations received a check for $6,400 as part of the 2018 Cinema for a Cause event hosted by the Georgia Theatre Company. For the event, 25 locations throughout Georgia, Florida, South Carolina and Virginia raised a total of $174,285 that benefited 35 local charities.

Local theaters chose which charities to donate to. Cody personally chose the three organizations.

“Quality of life charities like (Jacobs’ Ladder) are amazing to the people they are helping, and for Shop with a Cop, in today’s climate, I don’t think there’s anything more important than community and police relationships,” Cody said. “Anything we can do to help out our community, we will do.”

Jacobs said some of the money will pay off travel fees for 13 families that went to Gainesville for the Georgia Special Olympics Horse Show.

“These funds will provide for those who can’t afford to do this, and we are tickled to death to have it,” Jacobs said.

Hancock said the Shop with a Cop program helps build community relations and gets children in the community to trust police officers.

“What could make a child more in tune with a police officer than to see a police officer come up and hand you a toy?” Hancock said. “We’re just trying to build bridges and let these children know we’re on your side, and we’re out there to protect you.”

He said without the help of businesses such as Valdosta Cinemas, Shop with a Cop wouldn’t exist. 

The program receives money from many people and organizations, but the event brings in the biggest single payment, he said.

“People refer to it as a Valdosta Police Department program,” Hancock said. “I consider it a Lowndes County, Valdosta community program.”

Thomas Lynn is a government and education reporter for The Valdosta Daily Times. He can be reached at (229)244-3400 ext. 1256