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Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Please Help Detroit Fire Families

This is an email I just sent to our secretary I would love your prayer and positive thoughts for! Thanks!

Hi Rita,
This is CakeGirl, Sgt. B's wife.
I know that you are very busy so I will try to keep this short and sweet, but I could really use your help getting this out to the department. Could you do that for me? I wasn’t sure who to talk to about it.

Dear HTFD,
This is CakeGirl, Sgt. B's wife. As you may or may not know, Detroit's Fire Departments are in deep and desperate need of help. If you have watched the movie or seen the trailer for Burn, you know the real need and suffering these guys go through. Did you know they go without some basic safety gear and protection. They are in such desperate need there was a campaign started where fire departments can sponsor or donated equipment. http://www.detroitmutualaid.com/
The are asking for things like gloves, and hoods, flashlights, and axes. I mean simple but VITAL equipment. Here is a picture from one of their wish lists. It might shock you.


*

Extrication Gloves

COST NEW: $46
QUANTITY REQUESTED:14


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PIG - FORCIBLE ENTRY TOOL

COST NEW: $190
QUANTITY REQUESTED:2




*

FlashLights

COST NEW: $56
QUANTITY REQUESTED:14


*

NOMEX FIREPROOF HOOD

COST NEW: $23
QUANTITY REQUESTED:14


*

Flashlights - Helmet Mounted

COST NEW: $120
QUANTITY REQUESTED:14












Things that every firefighter has the right to have. It breaks my heart to think of these guys going out, while their city burns all around them, without even basic safety gear. What bothers me even more is the families that they leave behind, promising them they are safe. Telling their sons and daughters, and wives that they will come home. Yet not even having the proper equipment. Which to me means, not the proper chance either.
As a department, as a brotherhood, we have a policy that everyman goes home, right? How can we not extend this to our brothers next door? How can we sit by and do nothing, while we know that only an hour away,  there are brothers who are not safe. Their families need them to be.
One of the reasons I agreed to enter this fire life together with my husband, when he joined the department, is because his chief promised me he would be safe. That every man goes home. That we look after each other. As a wife, that carries me through some tough spots.
I can’t imagine what the firefighters in Detroit bravely tell their spouses, children, loved ones.
I can’t imagine, facing the dangers and the amount of fire they see, being one of their wives. It terrifies me to think of it and I am not sure if I would be that strong.


How can we help?


Well,  here is project we are linking arms with. Firefigherwife.com is an online community of fire wives acros the US. We started in 2012 with a FaceBook page, and quickly realized we needed a private and safe place to talk, and support each other. As many of you know, I help blog and administer the site. This place has been a life saver for me, and the 250 members, growing at an amazing pac, with over 24,000 fans. Every single day we get ladies who are on the verge of divorce, who are full of anger, hurt, fear, worry, and we help them through it with our shared experiences. It is place to go where other people get the stress, joy, hardships, sacrifice, and independence needed to be a fire wife. Marriages and lives have been changed, and it is are real blessing to be a small part of it.


Logically, after we heard that there was an opportunity to help we jumped on it. We are moved to go beyond the equipment and do something for the families. Across the nation we are asking fire wives out there to get together and make care packs for their families! We are looking for 350 carepacks in total to be donated.  The items we make and that people donate will be collected by January 15th and delivered late January.

I am looking for a group of wives locally that would like to help with making some easy crafts, a modge podged memory box or frame, to send in care packs. Again we are looking for one for each Detroit family, 350 all together, and we already have 100 pieces promised to be made across the US. I say we need to represent, being so close. That’s where you come in!


Growing up in Detroit, even having my spouse train with some of these guys, I feel compelled to personally help this way. If you do too, please contact me at blablabla@gmail.com. I will be getting together with fellow fire wives that want to help. As a thank you to anyone who helps by making a craft, they will get one FREE month of membership to the Firefighter Wife Sisterhood. For all the details click here. You can donate $5 to cover the cost of the supplies at the meeting. I will need a head count quickly, as we all know December flies by. To sign up for donating a handmade item, please register at this form and watch for details and instructions and email me letting me know you did to help with the head count so I can buy the supplies in advance for us. For more details on the craft project click here.


I will send you more information, and we can work out a time that will work for most of us.
If you want to help, but can’t meet up or don’t feel like being crafty, their are item on sale at firefighterwife.com that can be directly donated to the families that will also go in the care packs, like stocking winter hats, necklaces, tumblers, and more donatable items here at this link.


I will also be at the Christmas Dinner and Breakfast with Santa if you’d like to talk more!
Thank you in advance!
 
 
 

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