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Permalink Reply by Pam Tichy on October 12, 2010 at 6:45am

Hi Val - As far as Fire EMS life - over the course of my life the anwer is Yes. I grew up a 'fire brat' - my dad was chief of our volunteer dept for 13 years, my mom a charter member of the then Ladies Auxilary. I was a charter member of the Explorer post charterer by our FD. When I turned 18 I joined the Rescue Squad, married my husband, who was also a firefighter. I then moved from EMS to Auxiliary. Currently my brother is Chief, my husband was President last year - yes you could say I am in the life. :)
We live in a small, rural upstate NY town (pop. less than 3000). Our community depends on its volunteers, and that is the life I was raised in, it is simply what you do, in my family. The benefits are 10-fold - the fire department is a family within itself. That is an area that our department has gotten away from (local politics) but we have new blood, new families and the family unit is rebuilding - it is a great thing to see, and be a part of.
Our auxiliary, now accepting men too, is really a group that is made up of spouses, siblings and children of Firefighters & EMS, they are the support group both on & off the scene. On a scene Auxiliary provides Canteen / Rehab support. Day to day we assist ithe Firefighters w/ fundraisers, equipment purchases (we do our own fundraisers as well) support our Explorers in some of their projects w/ chaparones, etc; we also try to foster he social aspect of the department with christmas party, summer picnic, Daytona 500 party etc. It is important that there is a relationship among members - after all ona scene your life may be in their hands - there has to be a trust built up there.
This past weekend our FF, EMS & Auxiliary were together for Fire Protection week Open house - this is a new project began about 3 years ago. It has been a great project to bring everybody together.

Permalink Reply by Val on October 12, 2010 at 11:25am

If we'd had something like this our volunteer department may have been quite different. We spouses were rarely a part of anything. Just the yearly christmas party and that was honestly a chore. But our department was totally on the way out the door by then. This sounds like the town next to us (we are in the county). They have an AWESOME volunteer department. Does a lot of stuff together and like you said, it's just what you do when you are old enough to help.

See a lot of this auxiliary stuff that you talk about is done by staff. But we don't have many get togethers as a department, just the awards banquet once a year. We get together so much with all of our friends in the department that it's like the same thing. lol However, I'm sure there are many more that would join in if it was a department event.

We're camping this weekend and I'll talk to the girls about it. One of them is HR so she probably has a ton of information if I could get the help for things...that is if hubby wants me too. His work so I do ask his opinion on stuff like this. Even though he'll say he doesn't care ;)