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Texas AFL-CIO Honors Volunteer Firefighters in Summer’s Blazes
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Texas AFL-CIO communications director Ed Sills sends us this report.
The Texas AFL-CIO donated $150 gift cards to nine Central Texas volunteer fire departments that battled the rash of summer blazes.
Texas AFL-CIO President Becky Moeller and Director of Human Relations Lee Forbes praised the departments for their bravery during the long struggle to protect life and property in blazing summer heat. Bastrop and many other Texas counties were declared federal disaster areas following the fires.
At a meeting of volunteer departments in Cedar Creek where the cards were presented, Moeller said:
The generosity of union members and friends in setting up the Wildfire Relief Fund made a difference to many working families who received gift cards to buy work tools and other necessities that might otherwise have fallen through the cracks in the aftermath of losing homes and, in some cases, livelihoods. As always, the labor movement makes disaster response a high priority in our operations. We hope the wait for such activity is very, very long, but we must always be prepared.
These volunteer departments are the 3-N-1 Volunteer Fire Department in Smithville, the Five Points department in Bastrop, the Bluebonnet department in Cedar Creek, the Bastrop department, the Elgin department, the Smithville department, the Heart of the Pines department in Smithville, the McDade department and the Paige department.
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6 Comments
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This is a wonderful post-new year surprise for those volunteers.
It also shows that volunteerism for public benefit, not to displace employed emergency service workers but to fulfill the need where full-time employed professional emergency service workers cannot be funded, is highly valued by all of us.
$150 may not seem like a lot, but I am sure that the firefighters appreciate the unexpected regard that is expressed behind their gift cards, which comes at a good time of the year, actually.
I wonder how many of the 1% ever volunteered for anything?
Not mentioned in this story was the repulsive cuts in funding led by Gov. Rick Perry. Under Gov. Rick Perry (R) this year, Texas slashed state funding for the volunteer fire departments that protect most of the state from wildfires like the ones that have recently destroyed more than 700 homes.
Volunteer departments that were already facing financial strain were slated to have their funding cut from $30 million to $7 million
So the trickle down effect is on again, asking the citizens in the rural areas to up what they pay to keep these potential life savers afloat. Only in Texas.
I would not be surprised if Ricketts-Brained Perry thinks that the volunteerism means the volunteer emergency service people must also pay for the fuel with money coming out of their own pockets that goes into those fire trucks and ambulances!
I think Perry should pay for his own state wages out of his own pocket and pay for the electric and heating and air conditioning bill to his state office out of his own pocket!
Ole’ MOFO should pay for his $10,000 a month rent on his gated community home. It’s costing millions to rebuild the Governor’s mansion that was gutted by fire. In the back of my mind I have this suspicion he knows who did it.
It wonderful we talk about the good worker do.