Crime & Safety

Edgewood Volunteer Fire Department Receives Major Grant to Recruit, Retain Members

A grant for more than $100,000 was announced last week for the Edgewood department.

The Edgewood Volunteer Fire Department last week received a federal grant for more than $100K to help recruit, retain and build its force for the next four years.

For a department that runs solely on fundraisers and other money given by Edgewood Borough, the grant means much-needed support for an all-volunteer operation that currently has about $20,000 in the bank for the year so far.

“A set of bunker gear is $4,000, so you take that $20,000 and it goes fast,” Edgewood Fire Chief Dave Andrews said.

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With money focused first on replacing equipment and for current members, there aren’t many funds left to combat a growing problem – the lack of volunteers at fire departments across the state.

Written by Edgewood Volunteer Fire Department Member and Grant Specialist Lisa Segedy, the newest grant awarded will bring in funds for just that with a total of $112,500 for the next four years.

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“We have seven different activities addressed at retaining and attracting firefighters and for a volunteer department, it’s really important just to get those volunteers to come and be a part of things, but also to stay,” Segedy said.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency awarded the SAFER grant to the local department, which stands for “Staffing Adequate Fire Emergency Response.”

Two years ago, Captain Ben Reynolds created the Morale Recruitment and Retention Committee to address the issue of a smaller pool of volunteers. To help alleviate the problem, the committee initiated renovations to the living quarters in the upstairs half of the department on Race Street and

“Since we started that, we have had two live-in members, one current and have gotten five new members in just the first year since the program’s inception,” Reynolds said. “So we have shown a greater than normal degree of success with the efforts we have put forward so far. FEMA looks at that favorably. They are looking for volunteer fire departments that are cognizant of the need to continually focus on getting new volunteers and that helped us.”

The committee also organizes regular cookouts, baseball game outings and more to bring the fire department members together.

The new funds from the FEMA grant will be released to the department over the next four years and will be used for training fees, marketing, college education reimbursements for young members, Community Risk Assessments, childcare reimbursements and physical examinations.

Andrews said he was excited when he heard the news about the grant.

“This is fantastic,” he said. “To have the ability to dangle the proverbial carrot out there to get new blood into the department, to keep the people that are here wanting to stay here, we are just on the right track to move forward.”

He also said the new funds give some financial relief to the department’s future.

“With this grant, it will allow us to provide something similar to a paid department, but all volunteer, to the community,” he said.

For more information on how to get involved with the Department, e-mail station137@gmail.com.


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