By MALLORY GRUBEN
Fire Fighters Local 452 provided winter coats to nearly 700 children and fed around 100 people this holiday season.
Local 452 represents about 250 firefighters, paramedics, rescue technicians, pilots, and haz mat personnel at the City of Vancouver and Clark County fire districts 5 and 6. Every year members donate money and time to Operation Warm (also called Coats for Kids) and provide Thanksgiving meals to hospice patients.
Operation Warm
Operation Warm is a national nonprofit that makes winter coats for children in need, then partners with community organizations and businesses to distribute those coats. Fire Fighters International (IAFF) has participated in the program since 2012, and locals around the country fundraise and deliver the coats.
Fire District 6 Captain Ashley Mitchum coordinates Operation Warm for Local 452. She said the program usually donates 350 jackets to children at five local schools. This year, Michum received a grant from the Firstenburg Foundation in Vancouver that doubled that number to 700 jackets and 10 schools.
“It seems like the need increases every year, and this year was no exception to that,” Mitchum said. “We’re always limited by time. Ten schools was all we could fit in, but we could afford to do more. … We have extra coats for anybody that reaches out to us after.”
When Local 452 members deliver the coats to the schools — usually in October and November, before the winter weather really takes hold — they help the children pick out and size their jackets. Mitchum estimated that she needs 10 to 15 firefighters at each school to make sure every child gets one-on-one time with a first responder.
“A lot of these kids have seen us on emergency calls or in their homes, but that’s usually a scary time for them, so it’s nice for them to see the more human side of us,” she said. “You get to chat with them about their day or how their week is going, the upcoming holidays. … It makes them feel a lot more comfortable around us.”
Thanksgiving meals
City of Vancouver Fire Captain Tom Schell has coordinated hospice Thanksgiving dinners since 2012, though the program ties back to the union’s previous efforts to provide Thanksgiving meals for local families in need. Schell said he decided to focus on feeding families of patients receiving end-of-life care through PeaceHealth’s hospice and home bereavement services after he supported a fellow Vancouver firefighter who died of cancer from job-related exposure to smoke and other dangerous particles.
“I was there for his final six weeks (in hospice care). … When he passed away, I just saw how valuable the hospice program was to him, and that spurred me to think we should try to raise some money for these people,” Schell said.
For about three weeks in November, Schell gathers monetary donations from Local 452 members. Then he works with Colleen Storey from PeaceHealth Hospice/Hope Bereavement services to select families. The number of meals Local 452 provides depends on how much members donate. Typically they feed about 50 people in eight to 12 families. But this year, the hospice pitched in extra funding — enough to feed nearly 100 people, Schell said. Chef Earl Fredrick and students from the McClaskey Culinary Institute at Clark College prepare the meals, and Local 452 members sign up to hand-deliver boxes to the families on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Most of the families are located in Vancouver, but Schell said this year they had a delivery sent all the way to Castle Rock, about 50 miles north of the fire stations.
“These families are not necessarily in (financial) need, but they are in emotional need,” Schell said. “We do this because it’s a good thing to do for people who are in emotional need.”
