Thomasville Firefighter Random Acts Of Kindness

"SIRENS OF SANITY"

Helping others in calm moments may keep first responders healthy.

Firefighters have always had a heroic image, and that has been especially true since September 11, 2001. The public understands simple bravery. What it sometimes does not realize is the health hazard that firefighting creates, not just on the job but frequently long after the fire is out.

The fact is that heart attacks brought on by overexertion and emotional strain cause half of all deaths among working firefighters. These workers also are more prone to certain types of cancer later in life because of exposure to chemicals at the scene. On top of the physical challenges, firefighters carry with them memories of traumas they have witnessed, whether at fires or on emergency medical calls.
For all these reasons, there's a welcome new trend emerging in fire departments. A program called Random Acts gives firefighters the chance to participate actively in good works, such as bringing books and playground equipment to schools in low-income neighborhoods.

Badges give firefighters virtually unlimited power to step into
people's lives at their most vulnerable moments. The point of this program is to give them a chance to be of service in non-emergency moments, when their approach can be a signal not of danger but of good news. The theory  underlying it is that playing this role not only helps the recipients of the service but also contributes to the mental
health of the firefighters themselves.

Begun in Oakland, California, the idea has spread to fire departments in half a dozen states. Departments do not run the program--each chapter is a stand-alone nonprofit--but departments and local unions provide funding and equipment. It's nothing new for firefighters to engage in charitable activities, but Random Acts puts them to work
directly in both fundraising and projects such as building wheelchair ramps or bringing humanitarian aid and supplies to destitute villages in Central America.

Larry Hendricks, board director of the program in Oakland, says it's genuine therapy for firefighters who "have maybe seen too much over the years or become hardened" when they can pull a vintage engine up to an ice cream parlor for a fundraiser or distribute toys to children in hospital wards. "There's always been this affinity between  firefighters and children," he says. "They are our greatest love, and
our greatest fear. Maybe this program will give us another way to save children, beside a burning building."

"There are all kinds of things we can do to give back to the
community," adds Ricky Waddell, chaplain of the fire department in Thomasville, North Carolina, "but Random Acts is the only one I know of that pretty much gives more to the firefighters, I believe, than it does to the community."

 

Governing Magazine January 2008