ST. LAWRENCE, Pa. \u2014 This is what community support looks like.<\/p>\n
Dozens of people stopped by Rita’s on Perkiomen Avenue Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Some came for ice cream. Others came to buy raffle tickets. All for a great cause.<\/p>\n
At Rita’s and the Mt. Penn Family Restaurant next door, the focus was community. Raffle baskets. Donations. And a lot of people looking for a way to help.<\/p>\n
A portion of the proceeds from both businesses will go to the family of Central Berks Regional Police Officer Kristen Yeager, who died in a crash last month.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re having a fundraiser for the fallen officer Kristen Yeager,” said Rita’s owner Josh Nowotarski.<\/p>\n
Nowotarski says Yeager was a familiar face around the business.<\/p>\n
“We’ve often many times seen her in our lot here patrolling or watching traffic coming in after hours,” he said. “She was not only an officer of the community, but a good friend of ours.”<\/p>\n
The response from the community has been overwhelming. Businesses donated raffle prizes. Volunteers showed up to help, including 11-year-old Addison Blakemore.<\/p>\n
“I really like to help out the community, and I felt like it was the right thing to do after the officer died,” Blakemore said. “So I just wanted to help.”<\/p>\n
Organizers say that’s exactly what the fundraiser is about, neighbors helping neighbors.<\/p>\n
And making sure Officer Yeager’s loved ones know they are not alone.<\/p>\n
“They’re coming out to remember and honor her and her service and support her family,” Nowotarski said. “So that was the goal, and so far it’s working.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. LAWRENCE, Pa. \u2014 This is what community support looks like. Dozens of people stopped by Rita’s on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[214,279,128,130,129,213],"class_list":["post-216159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-berks","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-reading-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}