Six State Troopers from Kentucky and Ohio attended the funeral of slain Kentucky State Police Trooper Joseph Cameron Ponder on Friday and decided to grab a bite to eat together after the service, reported WDRB.
“We drove all the way from Ashland, had left at 5:30 a.m. and none of us had eaten anything all day,” KSP Trooper Eric Homan said.
Homan and fellow KSP troopers Chris Lee, Joseph Boyce, and Pat Hamilton, and KSP Detective Jeff Kelley stopped at the fast food restaurant with Ohio State Highway Patrol trooper Sgt. Chris Smith to decompress after a stressful day, but they never expected what would unfold while they were there. As the six officers were finishing up their meal, they were approached by a little girl, who walked right into the middle of the group with a heartfelt message.
Isabella Gregory is only 5 years old, but she understands and appreciates the hard work police do for their communities, so she wanted to do something nice for them. She and her mother, Sarah Yockey, were getting ice cream for themselves and spotted the officers walking into the restaurant. Young Isabella took it upon herself to lift their spirits by buying them all ice cream after their meal.
Making the extraordinary gesture even more special was the fact that Isabella did it all on her own without the help of her mother.
“She used her allowance she earned this past week to put smiles on their faces,” Yockey said Saturday. “She said, ‘Their friend died, and it’s not fair because he has a family too.’”
The group of officers took a photo with Isabella, which Homan later posted to social media with a warm thank you as a caption.
“Thanks to this fine young lady who used her allowance to treat us to ice cream today after the funeral services,” Homan wrote in the post. “We needed that! Relief comes in all different shapes and sizes … Thank you for supporting us Isabella, you are living proof of what makes coming to work every day worth it.”
