WILSON, N.Y. — The Bowman family knows what it really means to be a part of their community.
"It's just the right thing to do. If someone needs help, you help them out," said Colleen Bowman.
Not only have they owned the Lakeside Market in town for almost 15 years, providing their neighbors with all their essentials. James Bowman was a Wilson volunteer firefighter for 37 years.
Their son Joseph Bowman went on to follow in his dad's footsteps and works as a firefighter for the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station Fire Department. However, it was there that the Bowman's realized their son's coworkers needed their community as well.
"I wanted, as a mother, to make sure that they had food," Colleen Bowman said. "Then I started out to take some special orders and got people their favorite things."
Before the Bowman's knew it, they were driving 30 to 40 minutes a few times a week, just to drop off groceries for all the firefighters. However, they didn't realize the impact it was having on everyone there.
"We had to protect our flying mission and the only way to do that was to keep our guys in what we now call a 'bubble,'" said Asst. Chief Joseph Foucha, with the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station Fire Department. "We were able to overcome a lot of different issues. What we couldn't figure out was how to get these guys food two weeks at a time."
That small act of kindness went a long way.
"These guys also had to worry about themselves, they had to worry about their families," Foucha said. "So instead of having to worry about groceries, they were able to concentrate on other things like how we were going to respond to calls, how we were going to respond to medical calls, fires and things like that."
Now those firefighters are thanking the couple who went out of their way to take care of them all with a certificate and flowers.
"We're not use to the 'thank you's' or this magnitude of 'thank you,'" said James Bowman.
With or without it though, there's a lesson to be learned from the Bowman family's good deed.
"Help people out. Just remember everybody, be kind to everybody, and pay it forward. Yeah, great thing to do," said Colleen and James Bowman.
No matter what community you're a part of, there's always a way to be there for someone who really needs it.