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Sheep Firefighters Targeted For Supplies

SOCK IT TO THE FIRE FIGHTERS!

By Peg H
Friday, October 9, 2009

So, it all started out on Monday of this week. I was having an IM (instant messaging) discussion late in the evening with a cohort in crime, known to the RIMOFTHEW0RLD.net (ROTW) world as Flytylady (aka Fly) who gave me the old elbow in the ribs about doing something for our Fire Fighters who are working on the Sheep Fire. Having been a FF in her day, she felt that maybe the men and women might need some clean, dry socks and t-shirts. Since Fly isn't local, she felt it might be better-initiated by a current resident of our mountain communities (hint, hint, Peg) to see if we couldn't get some supplies to the people on the front lines and, in doing so, express our appreciation of what they do. I took the bull by the horns and posted to see if anyone would jump on this wagon.

I ended up having issues with my lovely computer the next morning and was unable to access ROTW to pick this up, but I knew that it was all in the capable hands of Fly. We didn't get a LOT of jumpers, but, the jumpers we got were formidable, to say the least.

Sticking with ROTW user ID's only, RRinCrestline, immediately gave up her "early Christmas shopping" socks and ran to get more. Skylandmarianne started digging in her drawers for what she could donate. And, then, here comes xoxo. Unable to donate much herself, which I can understand because all I could donate was my time, she got on the phone and started working on finding people who could donate. She ended up calling TARGET in San Bernardino. I capitalize that because TARGET deserves a HUGE shout out. She ended up working with Michelle from their Human Resources department who was happy to award us the $200 worth of merchandise that she can approve without further management approval. Wonderful! All we needed was a non-profit organization to be involved. With input from Boomer, Forget_me_not and 2Muttsmom, Kacey1 ended up stepping to fill that slot.

So, off to TARGET! Arrowbearmama stepped up to the plate there and took off to shop, shop, and shop. BUT, Arrowbearmama ended up being able to spend, not $200, but $500 for our heroes because Michelle extended herself even further and got an additional $300 approved! Did I say TARGET??? Gabbygirl got the information for Fire Station 25, where the donations were gathered. Skip 123 and Khiori added pertinent questions to clarify what we needed to do individually. By the time I had my computer back up and running, the entire venture was basically "in the bag" — pun intended, as there were many, many bags being dropped off at Fire Station 25. Thank you Captain Dan Nafzgar and Company!

Fire Station 25, Crest Forest Fire, was kind enough to allow us to use their location as a drop-off point. (Photo by RobH.)

Now, it was our turn to donate time. My husband is a photographer for ROTW, so we made arrangements with the Sheep Fire Public Information Officer extraordinaire (PIO), Matt Corelli, to go to the Incident Command Post (ICP) to distribute our donations in person and for hubby to get some photos of the camp.

Not only that, but, anyone who wanted, was invited to come along. It turned out that we couldn't go on Tuesday as originally planned, but Matt managed to work things out for us to go on Wednesday. With goodies in tow, we went down to Glen Helen, met with Matt and got set up to distribute socks and t-shirts.

The wind was blowing, it was cold. Sally and Chris from Forest Services came over and then… no one came. We were on the edge of disappointment! Where is everyone? What are we going to tell the people who took so much time to put this together? Well, one of things that happened was that many of the firefighters were being sent home to their own beds and had no need for what we were offering. That was understandable. But, we were still wondering what we were going to do with all of the donated items.

As the sun completely set, leaving us with no photo opportunities, of course, all of a sudden a long line of fire trucks came rolling into the lot where we were stationed. Visiting each truck, my husband explained what we were doing, encouraging the men and women to come on over and take a look. And, come they did! Surrounding the table, they availed themselves with Chap Stick, wipes, socks and soap. And, I gave every one of them a zip-lock baggie of Jolly Ranchers, Arrowheadmama's idea. Honestly, I think they all thought that was the best part!

One Firefighter, who apparently didn't hear hubby's pitch, picked up a pack of socks and mumbled that he could really use them and asked how much they cost. When the response was that the socks are a donated gift from the grateful people of the local mountain communities, he actually stepped back a few feet with a look of disbelief on his face. "I can just HAVE these?" he said. "Are you sure?" This proved to be the response from firefighter after firefighter as they ganged up on the table to shake our hands and say thank you.

"No, no, you don't understand!" we said over and over again. "This is to thank YOU! These items are donated from the people of the mountain communities and brought to you by RIMOFTHEWORLD.net and by TARGET to thank you for everything you do every time you come into our mountains to fight a fire. We rarely get to say thank you in person, so we're here to represent our friends in saying so."

So, after several hours of being buffeted by the wind and cold, we drove away from the ICP in Glen Helen Regional Park feeling pretty darn good! We'd seen a lot of smiles on the faces of a lot of (hot) firemen. What? It's a blog. I can say that!

Fireman Statue outside of Station 25. (Photo by RobH.)

If you click on the link to the article below, there are some more pictures and more story. Thanks for reading!!!

http://www.rimoftheworld.net/columns/peg/sheep_fire