Starkville municipal candidates give thanks to first responders
To show their appreciation for everything they do, candidates for this year’s Starkville Municipal Election office bought lunch for the city’s first responders at The Camphouse Restaurant on Thursday.
If anyone has seen an increase in difficulty after a year of the pandemic, it has been the first responders who work tirelessly to ensure the safety of citizens throughout the community.
To give thanks for their hard work, three city municipal election candidates approached John Lee Peeples, owner of The Camphouse
and Starkville Café with the notion of providing a paid-for lunch for the city’s first responders in a showcase of appreciation.
Peeples described Thursday’s event as “hugely successful.”
“After this past year, look at what our first responders have done for us. They have worked incredibly hard to keep us safe, and these three candidates approached me about putting together a big thank you for that special group in our community and it was hugely successful,” said Peeples. “Actually, I could almost call it a sellout event. We pretty much cooked everything we had, I think everybody got some tasty treats, made some bellies happy, so that was a real good thing.”
One of the three candidates who bought the lunch for the first responders said it was an opportunity to highlight them for their hard work that does not get recognized enough.
“A lot of these emergency responders had a really tough year with COVID, and they haven’t had a lot of community support for the past few months. So, this was a way for us to highlight our local hometown heroes,” the candidate said.
For Peeples, recognizing our community’s first responders is something he is always on board with, and he firmly believes they are the utmost important group of people in our community.
“Starkville Café sponsored this very event last year, because we went through a six-to-seven-week period where everything was shut down. So, it was very important to me, at that time, to say thank you to our first responders,” said Peeples. “When these three candidates came to me and asked if we could do this for them, I was immediately on board with them. It’s not just me, we have a lot of good businesses in this town who have stepped out there and said thank you to our first responders as well. I’ve eaten breakfast, lunch and supper with doctors, police officers and firefighters, and we’ve had these conversations. It’s been tough on everybody; it’s been tough on them and it’s been tough on those who aren’t first responders. This was just a good opportunity for these three candidates to spend some time with some extremely important people in our community and find out what they can do to help them.”