perry logoAfter a devastating fire destroyed their feed mill last spring, the Whiton family was tasked with deciding whether or not to rebuild in Perry.

Owners Marc, Jeff and Matt Whiton have chosen to not continue their local operation, but instead they’re giving back to the local entities that helped them when they needed it most. They recently made substantial donations to the Perry Firefighters Association, Police Officers Association and Public Works Department.

Deputy Public Works Director Josh Wuebker says Marc approached him on wanting to help out the specific departments, which he says is rare especially for public works as they don’t have an association like other entities.

“One thing that we’ve had kind of near to our hearts is safety, and we’ve had a safety committee for several years and just started doing safety and employee recognition days the last two years.  We’ve always wanted to start a fund but the money wasn’t there.  So with this donation we’ve decided to start a safety fund for purchases that might not be in a department’s budget, so it’s going to be a huge help.  It was a very, very nice donation from them and we greatly appreciate them doing that for us”

Police Chief Eric Vaughn says they too already have specific plans for the funds and intend to use the money to purchase body cameras for officers.

“We’ve been looking specifically to get one for our school resource officer, because he (works) out of his vehicle a lot.  He has a camera in his car but other than that he doesn’t really have anything to record his actions or things that happen in the school so that’s one of the things we’ve really been looking at lately” says Vaughn. Thanks to the generous donation, he says not only will they be able to purchase the one camera, they should be able to outfit all on-call officers with the new equipment.

The Perry Firefighters Association received the most significant donation of the three, though Treasurer Frank Eiteman says they’re still working on how to spend the money.

“We’re going to get together with the rest of the association to figure out what we’re going to do to better outfit our men for future fires, future situations, like flashlights or cameras or things we can use on the scene that we don’t have in our budget right now.”

All three men stated they’re extremely grateful for the generosity of the Whitons, and their donation will have a large impact.

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