CLEARFIELD – The holiday season is a time for giving and even though it has been a tough year for them, local businesses have continued their tradition of providing meals to local law enforcement.
Legend’s Sports Bar & Grill in Clearfield gave food to the Clearfield County Sheriff’s Department, the Clearfield Borough Police Department and the Lawrence Township Police Department.
Nicky Fletcher, office manager for the Sheriff’s Department, expressed their gratitude to Legend’s.
“They do it for us every year,” she said adding that the department orders food from them throughout the year for picnics and other events, and they usually “send more than what we ask for.”
“They take care of us.”
Officer David Hoover of the Clearfield Borough Police Department noted their department is “very grateful” to Legends as well as Scotto’s Pizzeria and Domino’s Pizza that also sent them food.
“It is great knowing the community and local businesses support us.”
DuBois City police were also feeling the love this holiday season, receiving pizza from both Buck’s Pizza and Napoli’s Pizza, according to posts on their Facebook page.
In addition, numerous other businesses dropped off a variety of food and treats for their officers.
Legend’s owner Mike Morrison explained it is important to support our local police because during this busy season they are working on holidays and “missing real meals with their family.”
Morrison has been giving out food to the police like this for the last three or four years.
He also noted that he supplies food at other times to the departments when they are in situations where they can’t get away to a restaurant to eat.
“They are good people,” he noted, adding “I am friends with a lot of them.”
You would think with the enormous loss of business this year due to the COVID crisis, he would hesitate to spend the money, but he didn’t.
“I thought this year, more than ever, I was going to do it.”
Owning a restaurant in 2020 has been challenging but posting daily take-out specials on Facebook did help his business.
A New Year’s Eve take-out special featuring a huge pretzel and wings proved very popular and sold out by 9:13 a.m. that day, according to one post.
Another post from Dec. 31 at 3:39 p.m. stated that they were unable to accept any more orders that night and noted “we are so blessed to have such local support!”
Even so, Morrison said that because of Gov. Tom Wolf’s shutdown in December, his business had “the worst December in 10 years.”
With the original stimulus package from Congress, he was eligible for the Paycheck Protection Program, which helped, but because of that he was ineligible for other funding from the county.
In December, the commissioners announced a special grant program to make it easier for businesses forced to close until January. From this, he got another $3,000.
But like other restaurants, these programs haven’t covered all his losses.
He is already talking to his accountant regarding the new stimulus package that was signed into law a few weeks ago.
Doing take-out orders has managed to keep his business alive, but “not everyone wants to do take-out. People like to come in and have a beer.”