Early Saturday morning many of the members of the Italy Church of Christ were up and cooking a delicious appreciation breakfast for the City Employees of Italy. The dinning hall was decorated to the hilt and delicious aromas were wafting through the air.

At eight in the morning the doors to the church were open and guests were being welcomed with smiles and handshakes.

Donna Cate (member of the Italy Church of Christ) explained, "We are having an appreciation breakfast for all of our Italy firemen, city workers, policemen, the sheriffs department and the EMS. We are having pancakes, sausage, breakfast burritos, coffee and orange juice. With this breakfast we are trying to let them know that we are very appreciative of all the hard work they do. We know they have to go out in all kinds of inclement weather, we know it is a hard job. We want to thank them for doing this job and keeping the city going. The Italy Volunteer Fire department are always being called to service and we want them to know how much they are appreciated for putting out fires all over the city of Italy and surrounding towns when the need arises. We are so glad to have the EMS in Italy. We hope that this appreciation breakfast is just the beginning of a new tradition and hope to have many more to come.

Dean Carrell (Italy public works department) was there and said, “Everyone of the city employees in public works will be here today. I think this breakfast is great. I have been employed by several cities and there are very few cities that will do this. It is so nice to be recognized and to be told thank you and I am glad to be here.”

Diron Hill (Italy Chief of Police) was in attendance with several of his officers. He said, “This is such a wonderful thing for the members of the Italy Church of Christ to do for us. It means so much to have the community behind us and we all appreciate it.”

When asked why they were putting on this breakfast, Pastor Walter Buchanan said, “We are having this appreciation breakfast for our policemen, firemen and city workers here in Italy. It is just our way of saying thank you for all they do, for protecting us, and for taking care of our property and helping us in our lives. We just want to say thank you. It is our gift to the city workers, policemen and volunteer fire department.”