We’d like to say thank you to our law enforcement officers for keeping us safe over the past Labor Day weekend.
Our men and women in uniform often work hard for little pay while many of us get to enjoy long weekends.
And thank you, in particular, to the Picayune Police Department for their donation of time and money Wednesday.
As you’ve read in today’s paper, the police department used some of the money from a fundraiser this summer, not to buy extra bells and whistles for the police department, though we are sure they could have, but to give back to some of our senior citizens living at the Pines. Wednesday afternoon, the men and women in blue brought and served hot lunches to the elderly residents with money leftover after a fundraiser the police held for a handicapped swing.
It is worth noting, also, that law enforcement agencies are usually never funded enough. There is always something they need, whether it is cars, communications equipment, extra manpower or just some new carpeting in the hallways. And to be fair, the police department had every right to keep all the money it raised and they had every right to spend all of it on supplies for the department.
But by showing that their needs come second to the needs of the handicapped and elderly, our police department is showing its true priority: The most vulnerable of our citizens.
Actions like this prove to the Picayune that the police department is a part of this community and that they are looking to improve the town by doing more than stopping speeding motorists or locking away drug offenders.
And by going above and beyond those daily expectations, our police department is reminding us all to be better citizens and remember the less-visible in our community.
That’s the sort of policing that money can’t buy.