2005 FILL THE BOOT CAMPAIGN

The 2005 Fill the Boot Campaign will be held August 26(A), 27(B), and 28(C). The locations will be announced soon. If you don't already know the event benefits the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) aka Jerry's Kids. The IAFF along with the departments of its members has supported the MDA for over 50 years now. Locals all over the Nation and Canada get out on the streets to Fill the Boot annually, usually around Labor Day. The totals from the previous year are then submitted to the MDA telethon on Labor day. The IAFF is the biggest single supporter of the MDA and last year raised 20.3 million dollars for the charity. This has been a steady increase over the years, 4 years ago the total was 9 million dollars collected by the IAFF. Yet our total amount raised has declined the past year to a little over $2,000 (most of which came from the golf tournament). The year before we were at almost $5,000. The difference was due to the fact we went from about 30 members helping with Fill the Boot to about 10 last year. This low turn out is disturbing. Sure we cannot collect on duty and we cannot collect at the intersections, but that is not cause for defeat. The more members we have to collect, the more money we will collect.

A little side note: The County and Salem both raised more money than us last year. To put that in perspective Roanoke Fire-EMS is about seven times as big as Salem and over twice the size of the County. Plus the County is able to collect at intersections this year. So we will have to try extra hard this year to beat them. Our goal is to raise $5,000 this year. I know we can do that. If everyone came out for a couple of hours we could easily raise $10,000.

We will have an MDA family at the Golf Tournament this year so you can meet them and put a face with the cause. The MDA picnic will be in August also and I will have details on that soon.

If you have any questions please contact me at Firefleitz@adelphia.net.