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The Next Generation
ON THE INSIDE The latest happenings in our area Page 4
April 7, 2016
Moosic fire company seeking young volunteers by Tucker Hottes Staff writer
The Greenwood Fire Department provides volunteer fire and rescue services to the borough of Moosic — a task handled by about 60 members and 23 active firefighters. Even with strong membership, though, Greenwood is always looking to bolster membership of all kinds. Fire Chief Chuck Molinaro said the department is actively seeking members to add to the ranks. “There are many components to the fire department,” he said. “It’s not all just about the fire apparatus and the firefighting and rescue work. Obviously that is a major component; however, there’s a lot of administration, we do a lot of fundraising, maintenance work, the list goes on and on. It’s a pretty broad brush when we talk about the different classifications of members.” Community members of all ages are encouraged to become part of the organization. Recently, firefighters John Segilia, Tyler Gaidula and Corey Allen visited Riverside High School to seek interested members from the junior and senior classes. “We’ll talk to anyone who’s interested, honestly,” Segilia said. “We’ll accept members from 14 at the youngest. Any help we can get, whether it’s from fundraising or actually doing fire training. We just need members.” The Greenwood Fire Department is involved in the community in far more ways than fire and rescue services. “It’s a civic organization; our charter granted to us by the commonwealth is to provide fire and rescue services, but while providing that it becomes a civic organization,” Molinaro said. “Our facility is used for civic events. We hold different annual events — we recently took the Easter Bunny around on the fire truck, we drive around town with Santa Claus. We do a lot of things that are community-oriented.” The commitment to the organization can vary — some members devote large portions
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From left: John Segilia, Tyler Gaidula and Corey Allen recently spent some time at Riverside High School soliciting fire company membership interest among the students.
of time, while others take a more casual role. “It’s all over the map, that’s why it’s important for us to continually look for new members,” Molinaro said. “While we enjoy a good base of membership, out of those base numbers they can only give so much of their free time to the organization. It behooves us to always try to obtain new interested people to try to pick up some of the difference in time availability. There are folks who are here seven days a week who spend anything from minutes to a couple hours a day here. There are people we see maybe once a week, or other folks we see only during fundraising events. It’s pretty open-ended.” Firefighters and volunteers also provide educational services that can help younger community members prevent and better react to emergencies. “We’ll go to the different day cares in the area, we’ll go to the elementary school, we do demonstrations for the kids,” Segilia said. “If anyone is interested in us doing fire safety training for a group, we’re happy to do it.” Molinaro said it’s important to point out there are many roles in the fire department away from the heat and potential danger. “A lot of folks don’t look at this as being
an interest because they may not be interested in running into a building that might be on fire,” he said. “However, we need to stress that while that’s important and we want those people, there are other things that we’re involved in on a daily basis that could use members. We just picked up a member, a younger gentleman who wanted to be involved but wasn’t big about being inside a building that might be on fire. But he has a CDL driver’s license, so we’re going to train him how to drive the fire apparatus. That’s a great opportunity; that will be one other thing someone else doesn’t have to do if we can add him to our roster of drivers.” The Greenwood Fire Department serves the community in many ways, and Molinaro said the members are happy to welcome one and all to the company ranks and renew commitments from existing members. “We want to present this so the folks in the community understand this is a process that never ends,” he said. “We continually try to recruit people, generate new interest, regenerate old interest.” For more information about the Greenwood Fire Department, visit their web site at greenwoodfiredept.com or call 570-961-9454.