A little over a year ago, we at NPPC embarked on a journey to write about public employees giving back to their communities in extraordinary ways during the coronavirus pandemic. Since then, we’ve collected 500 stories from small and major media outlets across the country about how public employees go the extra mile for our communities.
Every week, I have had the opportunity to share the incredible stories of these amazing people. There’s the retired police officer in Kentucky who started a free grocery delivery service for seniors. There are the firefighters in Schertz, Texas who donated gift cards to residents and local businesses to help folks stay afloat. There’s the teacher in Alabama who paid his students’ utility bills with his stimulus check. And the librarian in Tennessee who refused to close her library’s doors so she could help customers fax paperwork and access books during the pandemic.
We started this blog not because of the work public employees have been doing since the pandemic started, but because now people have started to take notice. Police officers, firefighters, teachers, librarians, social workers, road workers, state employees, and other public employees are the pillars of our communities in this country.
Public employees have always gone above and beyond their jobs, and we are going to continue highlighting their service to our communities through this blog. Their stories are the ones that need to be heard. In the future, we’ll be mixing in some of the 500 stories we’ve collected, as well as some new stories that need to be amplified.
From all of us at NPPC, we thank every single public employee for your service. And most of all, you can always count on us to help defend your hard-earned defined-benefit pension benefits.