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Comment by Alan on June 5, 2009 at 10:15pm

We have teen dances about twice a month, each year there is a town wide yard sale and we sell breakfast and lunch sandwiches, each Christmas we have breakfast with Santa to help raise money. That's some the things we do to help raise money. Hope this helps. Stay safe out there

Comment by CHIEF NORMAN on June 5, 2009 at 2:55pm

Boot drive, good P & R and able to raise a little cash...

Comment by DUST on June 5, 2009 at 9:07am

I think food fundraisers are good as it gets the community to come to your department. Besides we all have to eat. BBQ, fish fry, chili for day/evening time or a pancake breakfast. Also, hold a raffle you can sell tickets a month before & then have the drawing on the same day of the fundraiser...maybe for a flat screen tv or just a cash raffle. Have a couple volunteers on hand and have station tours so people can look around at the trucks while they are there too. Good luck!

Comment by Marvin Personette on June 5, 2009 at 6:16am

Hello Tammy,
Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Marvin Personette. I am a first responder, firefighter,and hazardous materials team member with RFFD in Ridge Farm, Illinois. In reguards to your question, we have an annual pancake /sausage breakfast every year in August. Which i might add, is usually a big success. Just a few years ago, we incorporated a few other events to go along with our fund raising, and had even bigger results. We started off with the breakfast, threw in games and inflatable rides(bounce houses etc.), a pedal tractor pull, face painting, and such for the kids. A cake walk, raffles, a poker run, a ham and bean dinner later in the evening, and ended the night with a band. I am certain that others will have several different ideas than ours, but these ideas have proven to be very successful for us over the last 2 or 3 years since we started. However, this meant that instead of getting things started at 5am and finishing up around 4pm like we did when we only had the breakfast, we got things started at 5am and finished up around 2 or 3 am the next morning. It took alot of planning, and even more work, but in the end it was worth it. We were able to purchase new turn out gear for every member on our dept. from the officers on down. Well, now that i have bent your ear for awhile, i'll sign off in hopes that maybe your dept. will try some of these ideas and have as much success as ours did. Please let me know how things turn out. Until then, God bless, be safe, and have a wonderful summer !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Comment by Dustin J. Millis on June 5, 2009 at 5:30am

My dept. has the same problem. Sounds like you have someone who actually wants to do a fundraiser though (so your a step ahead of us lol) anyway... try and get past the regular fishfry's and chili dinner. Nothing against fish or chili but thats what EVERYONE does!!!! Before the fundraiser committee got lazy over the last two years, my dept sponsored a poker tournament, and a golf outing. A firefighter's ball is nice. Rent a room, hire a band, and invite people from the town to come to a nice dinner and dance to some swingin jazz music lol.