Purple parking spots are showing up in cities throughout the country — and the reason behind them is both surprising and amazing (video below).
Everyone knows that handicap spots are reserved for disabled citizens, but a city in Ohio began implementing purple parking spots that are specially reserved for Purple Heart recipients — those who were wounded in combat.
The spaces were first created outside of the Warren Municipal Court in Warren, Ohio, as a way to honor veterans for their service to the country.
“For the city to recognize veterans by putting out a parking spot for the combat wounded, you know, combat wounded, they should hold a special place in everyone’s heart,” Trumbull County Veteran Services Network director Herman Breuer told WKBN. “They spilled blood for our country.”
The city of Warren announced its intentions to put the spaces in every city building parking lot.
“We’ll have one at every single building that’s used. So right now, City Hall will have one, the new government services building, the old Gibson building will have one, along with Packard Music Hall,” Warren Mayor Doug Franklin said.
The city of Clovis, New Mexico, later implemented their own purple parking spaces after word spread of the idea when it originated in Ohio.
“I saw that some people in another city had done this,” Clovis resident Nathan McCreery, who spearheaded the campaign, told the Clovis News Journal. “and I thought, ‘Wow, we have to do that here.’”
McCreery is not a veteran himself, but he felt it was the right thing to do as a way to recognize Purple Heart recipients and their service and sacrifice.
“Honor is due,” he said. “Just because you aren’t former military doesn’t mean you can’t respect what they do and what has been done … We want to give honor and respect to these men and women because some of them have paid a huge price.”
[Source]
