LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — While many Americans can take Thanksgiving as a chance to rest and relax, medical emergencies don’t take a break— meaning for most first responders, Thanksgiving is just another Thursday.
The same is true for workers at Metropolitan Emergency Management Services (MEMS) in Little Rock.
“When work requires you to be here for a holiday,” said MEMS Operations Manager John Woodward. “We want to be that family to share the holiday with.”
For MEMS workers like Woodward, work does require them to be there on holidays, responding to emergencies throughout the city.
But MEMS Operations Director Chris Marshall said it’s important that they do so— it’s why they got into the business.
“Regardless of how minor the call or how major the call that you respond to is,” Marshall said. “You're making an impact at that point in time in an individual's life, because it's their crisis, and you're the calm in the storm, and so you always have an impact.”
But that impact does require sacrifice, like spending holidays like Thanksgiving away from family.
That’s why every year, the “work family” at MEMS steps up, with those who work at the station preparing a Thanksgiving meal for crews when they get back.
“We are one big family,” Marshall explained. “And that's the way I've always considered first responders. It’s a family, and we've got to take care of our own so we can make sure that we're taking care of the citizens that we serve.”
As for the menu?
“Traditional Thanksgiving,” Woodward said. “All the stuff, ham, turkey, dressing, potatoes, sweet potatoes, everything.”
And for these heroes, the food isn’t the only benefit. Marshall said days like today really do bring them closer together.
“I think just in general, the holiday season just makes everybody, to me, feel closer and connected,” Marshall added.
As for crews that don’t work at Marshall and Woodward’s station in the heart of Downtown Little Rock, MEMS has “runners” that deliver the food to them so that they too can enjoy a Thanksgiving meal.