Sunday, September 11 is the date for this year’s First Responder Appreciation BBQ. It’s an event put on by Senate President Peter Micciche to celebrate public safety and medical frontline workers for their service to the community. The event is rain or shine and it’s free to the public.
Sen. Micciche tells KSRM:
“We started this tradition back during the Funny River Fire. We had all of the firefighters and forestry firefighters, firefighters from all over the country, really, that responded, and we decided that we wanted to recognize them and thank them as a community. Now we’ve been trying to do it every year. We’ve done it on most years and what it is, we have very generous sponsors, Marathon and Peterkin Distributors, Hilcorp and City of Soldotna, Odom and Coca-Cola, we’re sponsoring it as well, my office. We think it’s important to thank first responders. That’s law enforcement, firefighters, forestry, the borough emergency response folks.”
On the importance of recognizing public safety and frontline workers, Micciche said:
“They put themselves at risk to keep us safe everyday and Sunday is a great opportunity at Soldotna Creek Park, September 11th, a very important first responder day. From 2:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., we’ll have free food because of our sponsors and it’s really just an opportunity to maybe bring some cards or a poster and walk up and thank the first responders that will be present. They deserve our respect and our appreciation, and this is a great opportunity to be face-to-face with those that keep you safe every day.”
Sen. Micciche added:
“What we’ve typically done is we do have a stage presence for those from the different departments that want to say a few words, but, really we’ll just have some music and free food and what our goal was was an interface. You don’t typically have that opportunity to have the troopers and the police and the fire departments all in one place. You’ll be able to walk up, maybe you have a young man or a woman that’s interested in getting into the business, they can talk to them about what it’s like to be a trooper. Really, it’s the interface to walk up to these folks in uniform and thank them for keeping us safe.”
Sen. Micciche said in a social media post to consider bringing ‘thank you’ cards to present to the First Responders. Additionally, any ‘thank you’ signs will be placed on stage.
