OT But Exciting: A 'New' Fire Truck

14 years ago

This is really off-topic, having virutally nothing to do with gardening although at least it is about Oklahoma since ours is an Oklahoma VFD staffed by Okies.

As many of you know, our entire family is involved with our local Volunteer Fire Department and it consumes huge amounts of our time and energy.

Volunteer Fire Departments here in Oklahoma, and in fact all over the USA, struggle to survive, relying on a small stipend from the state and another from the county. Every year we're just thrilled to death if the state and county give us enough money to put gas in our trucks.

Today, it was announced that our rural VFD is the recipient of a large grant to be used for 'vehicle acquisition'. By combining the grant money with funds we've raised via a gazillion different kinds of fundraisers, we may actually be able to buy a fire engine that was manufactured in this century!

A new-to-us but gently-used engine will be such a godsend.

So, a big thanks to every one of you for paying your taxes year after year after year.....because it is your money that the federal government is giving us via the federal grant. Thanks for the firetruck we'll be buying with this grant. I promise we'll put it to good use.

Oh, this is just so cool.

Dawn

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Comments (6)

owiebrain
14 years ago
Congrats to your FD, Dawn!! They need new "toys" every century or two. ;-) Seriously, they work hard and hopefully a new-ish truck will help take a little bit of the extra stress from their work. Old equipment can be a bear!

Diane
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
14 years ago
Diane,

Thanks. We're so excited we can hardly stand it.

I don't know if our firefighters will be able to drive a vehicle that isn't held together with duct tape and baling wire. Well, I'm kidding about that, but we do have some pretty old trucks. The engine they had when Tim joined the VFD in 2004 was build in the 1950s! (We called her the 'old granny truck'.) Our current engine is a 1970s model.

The 'shopping' will be the hard part because everyone will have a different opinion about what the department 'needs'.

Between the grant and the fundraiser funds, at least they'll have something safe and efficient so they can continue fighting those fires.

We have some talented welders and mechanics (two of the 'mechanics' work in a vehicle-related profession) who have done amazing things to keep very old equipment in great repair, but the constant maintenance is tiring, time-consuming and costly. Of course, I don't know what they'll do if they don't have a firetruck that needs repair a couple of times a month.

Dawn
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rjj1
14 years ago
That's cool Dawn. Congradulations!

randy
panhandlejan
14 years ago
I appreciate our volunteer firemen and know how difficult it is to do a job with old, unreliable equipment. Glad your firefighters get the fun of selecting and using a newer model truck.
Jan
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
14 years ago
Thank you all.

Tim and I, along with the asst. Fire Chief and the Chairman of our Fire Board have known for a couple of weeks that the grant had been awarded, but we kept our mouths shut just in case something went wrong and the grant didn't go through. Today I kept checking the grant list every 5 minutes waiting for the list of awarded grants to pop up. I was like a kid on Christmas Eve who stands at the window and peeks outside watching for Santa.

Being awarded grants is very, very hard. It is so hard that some fire departments hire people to write the grant applications for them. We're lucky. We have a couple of folks on our fire board who have been writing grant proposals forever and are very good at it. It takes them many hours to write one grant proposal, complete all the paperwork, etc. Thousands and thousands of fire departments compete for a very limited pool of grant money, so it is a thrill to receive a grant, especially a large one.

And, while we're on the subject of grants, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the Noble Foundation in Ardmore. They gave us a $25,000.00 grant to help build our fire station. Without a station, you don't really 'exist' as a fire department and you cannot even apply for grants until you have a building. So, we really owe everything to the Noble Foundation because they helped us get our start.

In the past, we have received grants a couple of times for firefighters bunker gear, air tanks and masks, etc. This is the first really large grant we've received. Y'all were polite and didn't ask the $ amount, but I'll tell you anyway. It is $166,000.00 and some odd dollars and cents. We have to match it with a little over $8,000. that we've raised. You have to hold a lot of garage sales and auctions and hot dog/hamburger cookouts to raise $8,000.00. Our community supports us really, really well.

Our new truck won't be as flashy and fancy as the million-dollar Striker fire/rescue truck (or maybe it is a Stryker) that our son drives at work, but it will be the equal of any other fire engine in the county.

OK, I'll stop babbling on and on about it, but you know, I feel like we won the lottery.

Dawn
gldno1
14 years ago
Finally, tax money being spent wisely!

OT But Exciting: A 'New' Fire Truck

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owiebrain

Okiedawn OK Zone 7
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OT But Exciting: A 'New' Fire Truck

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owiebrain

Okiedawn OK Zone 7Original Author

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rjj1

panhandlejan

Okiedawn OK Zone 7Original Author

gldno1

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Okiedawn OK Zone 7
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