Foundation Gives Training Funds to Volunteer Fire Departments

The Corydon Democrat
Wednesday, December 10, 2003

A committee of the Harrison County Community Foundation recently reviewed the commissioned study of Harrison County¹s nine fire departments. The committee recommended that the Foundation focus financial support toward training and annual equipment testing.

Each department will be awarded $450 for three members to attend firefighter training. An additional $2,000 was awarded for specialty training such as hazardous material containment or swift water rescue.

"Specialty training funds are to be used at the discretion of the fire chiefs," said grants committee chair Carl Uesseler. "The funds can pay for tuition, travel or any other expenses directly necessary to get their people a training certificate."

Each year, fire departments are also required to have certain equipment tested and certified as safe by external testing agencies.

The Foundation has awarded up to $3,000 to each department to help offset these costs. The fire chiefs are researching to see if they can contract with a single agency to perform all annual testing at the same time to reduce the total costs.

The Foundation also awarded additional funds to the Ramsey Volunteer Fire Dept. providing matching funds for two external grants. One grant of $4,000 leveraged an equal amount from the Indiana Dept. of Natural Resources and a second grant of $5,880 provides the required match for a $58,800 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"I'd like to commend the patience and cooperation of our fire departments," said Steve Gilliland, executive director of the Foundation. "The evaluation process took some time, and not everyone got the results they wanted to see. The bottom line is the Foundation acquired the information needed to make these and other justifiable grants in the future."

The total amount awarded to the fire departments from these decisions was $58,930.