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Two Hills Fire Rescue Receives $10,000 Grant
Two Hills Fire Rescue Receives $10,000 Grant
Michelle Pinon - News Advertiser
On April 10 members of the Two Hills Fire Rescue graciously accepted a $10,000 cheque from representatives of the Two Hills Branch of Vision Credit Union.
The funds were made available through the Helping Hands Grant made available through Vision Credit Union. Fire Chief Marj Skoropadyk stated, “Two Hills Fire Rescue would like to extend our greatest appreciation to Vision Credit Union (VCU) for this significant donation. This grant offers us the ability to serve our community even better.
As stated in the application the grant will be used for a variety of purchases. First and foremost is replacing the air bags that we use to stabilize or lift vehicles or machinery at collision scenes. We also want to improve and upgrade the storage for our bunker gear, purchase a sea can for storage and training, upgrade shelving in the fire hall for equipment storage and upgrade rescue unit scene lighting. All of these things will more than use up the grant amount so we will need to prioritize our spending.
These improvements will enable our department to be better equipped to serve our community quickly and safely in emergency situations. Better storage will mean we can respond more quickly when we need equipment that is used infrequently and might otherwise be challenging to locate. Improved lighting improves safety and response time when visibility is better. A sea-can will increase in-house training opportunities for our members and more up to date equipment will increase volunteer safety.
Our department serves an estimated 5,000 residents which includes the Town of Two Hills as well as the approximately 3,500 residents of the County of Two Hills, and assisting our neighbours through mutual aid agreements as well as the many people that pass through our area daily.”
Skoropadyk is also appreciative of the efforts of Deputy Chief Ryan Morey who applied for the grant on behalf of the fire department after hearing about it from a friend.
According to VCU, the Helping Hands Grant was: “Inspired by the legacy community support program offered by Encompass Credit Union before Encompass and Vision merged, in 2022 it was recognized that there was a need to help the local schools, charities and community organizations that make a difference in the locations it operates in. Larger capital projects can fall outside of the requirements and funding amounts of most community charity programs but were still in need of funds.
So, Vision came up with the idea to offer Helping Hand Grants to qualifying organizations for capital projects that improve the well-being of all members of the communities that Vision operates in. The program, which offers up to $10,000 in funding to qualifying organizations, has had huge interest in its first year with more than 100 applications.”
