(Photo Source: news-press,com)

The anonymous donor gave $911 to pay for first responders meals

An anonymous patron at a restaurant in Independence, Missouri, gave free meals to first responders in remembrance of 9/11. The anonymous Good Samaritan asked the restaurant’s owner to only identify him as “that damned Okie” because he’s from Oklahoma.

The man handed the owner, Jeff Pepperman, $911 to cover the cost of meals for firefighters and police officers who had stopped at the restaurant for lunch.

“Instantly it kind of just hit me right in the heart to where, he said he had to rearrange his finances in order to do it,” Pepperman said. “It blew my mind, my friend. Just know that people are out there appreciate you, [first responders].”

Hundreds of first responders, including more than 300 New York City firemen, died as the result of the terrorist attacks that devastated the country on September 11, 2001. Many were killed as they helped evacuate civilians from the World Trade Center towers, which collapsed after being hit by two hijacked airplanes.

“After 911, this many years later, that they still think about us like this,” Thaddeus Marr, a local firefighter who received a free meal, said. “It really shows their support for us and how much that we mean to them and we really appreciate that.”