Yesterday I joined the Atlanta Young Republicans in a community outreach of delivering candy to fire stations for Valentine’s Day and as an expression of gratitude for all their hard work. We divided up in teams, mostly ladies, to divide and conquer the 41 stations across the City of Atlanta. When we arrived at a station, our schpeel went a little like this:
“Hi my name is ________ and this is my friend _______ and we’re from the Atlanta Young Republicans. We just came out today to share our appreciation and deliver this bucket of Valentine’s Day candy. We are really grateful for all that you do.”

At most of the stations, this opened the door for casual conversations about how we got involved, what other stations we had already been to and general friendly conversation. A couple of the stations gave us a tour, showed us some of their equipment or shared funny stories and pictures. It was a really great opportunity to meet real public servants and make them feel appreciated. At one point, my car partner and I even discussed how much we’d like to do MORE for our local fire fighters on a regular basis because of how kind they had all been to us.

That was, until, we were turned away because of political affiliation. Apparently one of the chiefs was concerned about accepting candy from a Republican group because they did not want to appear partisan. This prompted an email to a supervisor that resulted in a city-wide candy delivery shut down. I’m sorry, sir, but when did accepting candy from young professionals who wanted to solely express gratitude become a political statement? Would you have done the same thing from the Young Democrats? How about if we had been handing out steak dinners with baked potatoes and pecan pie? I’m calling you out, because I don’t think you would. It’s interesting that the further south we went into the city, the less receptive people became. (I thought liberals liked free stuff???) I could understand if we were bringing around voter registration information or pushing a certain candidate, asking for donations or had something to gain from our actions…but delivering candy? What the heck has the world come to?

You can bet that the next time I deliver a meal to an Atlanta fire station, on my own time of course, (because I won’t punish them all for a few cranky snobs), I will wrap it in elephant print saran wrap and tie Ronald Reagan quotes to each individual tray. I’ll deliver it in my ‘Friends Don’t Let Friends Vote Democrat shirt’ while playing ‘God Bless the USA’ on my iPhone.

One final thing I ask you, City of Atlanta fire personnel….what have the Democrats done for your lately?