A Birmingham high school, Briarwood Christian, honored first responders in a big way during their homecoming game Friday night. The team used the run-through to start the game not to kneel in protest, but to give first responders across the nation the respect and recognition they deserve. Each player burst through the “Thank You First Responders!” banner carrying an American flag in an incredible display of gratitude to those who work to keep this nation safe.
Jay Matthews, Briarwood Christian’s Athletics Director and Assistant Principal, told Yellowhammer News about the student body’s vision to honor first responders during their Homecoming festivities.
“This past summer, our student government officers met and adopted the theme for Homecoming 2017- “Honor 1st Responders” and each grade adopted a specific group of first responders to honor and serve. The 9th grade chose EMT personnel, the 10th grade chose firefighters, the 11th grade chose the military, and the 12th grade chose law enforcement. Each grade decorated school hallways and created opportunities to support these valuable heroes in our society. Our BCS Fine Arts academy had each class create a hand painted portrait for each group being honored. Those portraits and other gifts will be presented to local departments in the next few weeks.
Our homecoming parade on that Friday featured numerous 1st responder vehicles as well.
Our principal, Dr. Shawn Brower approached Coach Yancey about the flag run through and the football team embraced the idea. We had parents donate for the purchase of the flags and it helped continue the theme in a nice way. We were also blessed that ST. Clair County’s band has a patriotic theme halftime performance featuring a large American Flag under the care of the local Air National Guard.
To think about how a decision made this past summer could end up being so important in light of recent crisis is very interesting to me and many of the first responders involved in the week were blessed. I think it is important to note that the adoption of the theme was never to intentionally counter any message in current culture, but enhance a long standing tradition of honoring those who sacrifice for us day in and day out.”
Check out the video below!
