Following Harps regional initiative to support local police and fire departments, Harps in Highland lead the way for the district coming in first for lowest volume by customer account, but highest percentage by giving.
According to store manager Ricky Gardner, throughout the month of June, over 20 stores participated, but it was a company wide effort.
“They wanted to do something a little bit more local and so we just ran with it. We got with the Highland Police Department and Highland Fire Department and let them know what we were doing and they both offered to support it,” Gardner said.
Through the efforts of the store employees and the community, key items were sold, but Gardner also said many just made a donation to the cause outside of purchases.
“I probably got as much, if not more, in donations alone than I did people that, you know, actually bought the snacks or anything, Gardner said.
Over $2,500 was raised to be gifted to the departments.
During the presentation, Highland Police Chief Jeff Hamilton said the support was appreciated and needed.
“We appreciate all of the effort Harps and the community had put into this. We’re gonna use it for bullproof vests. There’s some grant funding out there, but most of it, right now, is matching grants,” Hamilton Said. “Our vests are gonna expire in two years and to replace everybody’s vest on the department, it’s going to be close to $20,000. Being a small department, small community, it’s just not in the budget, so this was absolutely a godsend, a blessing for them to come up and say ‘hey we’re going to raise some money for you guys for whatever you need. It was, you know, the timing was perfect.”
Gardner said company wide, Harps raised just over $258,000.
He also noted additional fundraisers for other organizations would be held in the coming months.
“We will do more events. I just hope everybody has a lot of response, and I’ll most likely be doing a lot of events for, veterans, police officers, teachers and educators and then closer to Thanksgiving we will focus on food and will have a drop box set up,” Garder said.
Lauren is a an award-winning journalist who decided after 10 years of newspaper experience to venture out. Hallmark Times was born.
