Local businesses donate profits in support of Columbia County deputies

COLUMBIA COUNTY, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - On Wednesday, business owners around Columbia County showed their support for Deputies Brandon Sikes and Gavin White.

They donated profits from sales to the family of fallen deputy Sikes and White.

They all say it was an easy decision, and they’re all thankful to see the community come together in support of both deputies.

It was a heartbreaking loss in the Columbia County community, inspiring others to step up and give back.

“We have this one here, which is for Officer Sikes. And then we created these ones for Officer White.”

From donation days, “Giving back 20% of all the proceeds today to the families of Officer Sikes and Officer White,” said Steven Studdard, Vampire Penguin owner.

“From 3 to 8 today, 10% of those sales will go directly to the families of those officers,” said Jan Easton, Chicken Salad Chick, general manager.

To small businesses already raising nearly $3,000, “We decided to just create the stickers. 100% profits are going to go to the families, and once everything is done this week, we’re going to go ahead and send those checks,” said Tanya Smelker, Charm and Char, owner.

Though nothing can make up for the loss of a loved one, Smelker says, as a community, it’s important to stand together.

“Watching the outpouring of love, watching everybody kind of hold each other up has really, truly shown like how strong Columbia County is,” said Smelker.

And with ties to law enforcement, “My brother is a police officer up in Vermont. I’ve been in fire service and doing fire protection engineering for 16 years now, and so we’ve seen tragedies like that happen. But I’ve been down here 8 years and really have not seen anything to that magnitude. And so it was just really heart-wrenching to see that happen for sure,” said Smelker.

Stepping up was an easy decision. “We’ve had a couple of people that worked for us who were families of Columbia County cops. And so, we’ve had them in here supporting us for a long time. And we have plenty of customers who are cops and their families coming here quite often. When we have the opportunity to give forward and give back to the community, we knew we wanted to,” said Studdard.

“I have a lot of officers that come through here and meet their families on a regular basis, so it’s just something that was the right thing to do,” said Easton.