I want to share some statistics with you, we currently have 56 members, of those 27 are interior firefighters and 11 are EMS technicians, we currently only have 3 ALS providers. Our call volume is putting an extreme strain on our limited resources and it’s not unnoticed and the threat of not being able to provide our vital mission is not unappreciated.

We are viewed as the heroes of our community, whether you joined for that reason or a myriad of others, that’s a fact. From just about every child to most adults, when they think about Firefighters and EMS technicians they think hero, most of us don’t view ourselves as that, we view ourselves as husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, accountants, teachers, contractors, administrative assistants, bankers, lawyers and a lot of other things.

But in reality, we are the heroes of our community, we provide a vital, life saving, life changing service to the people we serve. We strive as a company and as a profession to step into the most dangerous, chaotic, challenging situations and fight to provide positive change to the situation. We use the tools, training and talents of our brothers and sisters to achieve this goal. We willing put our own personal safety at risk to try to enact that positive change.

These are trying times for our company and the volunteer fire service as a whole, longer training hours, more calls, multiple jobs, family obligations and much needed time to rest, relax and recuperate all compete with the time we have to serve. But our service is something that very few people can or are willing to give, we are the few that protect the many, we are the few that selflessly serve the many for almost no compensation. As a matter of fact, the compensation that we receive is the personal satisfaction of doing a difficult job and making a positive impact on a strangers day, usually on one of the worst days in their life.

Thanks for that contribution is rarely found and yet the feeling of helping a neighbor when most others don’t have the selfless dedication to duty that we carry with us daily as a badge of honor and a cross, is payment enough. Two saying come to mind when I think about my career in the Fire/EMS services, “he who has saved a life, has saved the whole world” and “this job owes you nothing, you owe it your everything.” These times are the challenging times that define not only our own character, but the character of our organization. In times of great difficulty is when a person’s and an organization’s true character come to the surface and either rise to the occasion or fall under the weight.

I took an oath, you took an oath, every member of this company took an oath to be the one who comes to our neighbors aid when no one else will, to lay down our tools, to kiss our spouses and children and to run to the sounds of danger and to help our neighbors in their most desperate time of need.

This company is at a crossroads, we can fall under the weight of our oath or we can rise to our calling. We need to take stock of what our membership really means to us, we need to decide if it’s our house we want to lose because no one responds, we have to consider that it may be our family member who suffers because no one answers the call, we need to consider if the legacy we want to leave is one of apathy or unwavering strength.

It’s easy to look back and wish for the old days of a full membership and a dedicated cadre of members, it’s difficult to stand in the storm as the winds of change buffet us and try to knock us down.

The Chiefs office has an open door policy, we have some strategies that we are working on to recruit new members and to try to give some recognition and reward to those who go above and beyond, but let’s face it, those tangible, physical rewards are minor at best. The real reward we all receive is the ability to stand apart from the majority of our peers and look in the mirror and realize that we are the epitome of selfless service to our fellow human beings, that we are the shining few that put service above self, that when final judgment comes we will hear, well done good and faithful servant.

If you have any advice, ideas or comments regarding recruitment or retention please don’t hesitate to approach one of the chiefs and add your voice to this most important conversation. No one person is going to be able to find a solution to our current staffing challenge and only together are we going to overcome this period of difficulty.

I would like to leave you with one last thought, regardless of our differences or sometimes our personality conflicts, we are brothers and sisters, we are family. The men and women to your left and right have your back in the most trying and dangerous of circumstances and will be there to lean against you for support when most needed. Please consider the commitments we have made to each other and should be honoring. Please consider that some of your brothers and sisters will be out doing the job we all volunteered to do when you roll over and reset. Please consider that on any given day, we are the only thing that stands between life and death for one of our neighbors.