Gateway Wins Donation to Help Huron County Fire Fighters

by Bob Montgomery

A Research Assistant with the Gateway Centre of Excellence in Rural Health made a presentation to 100 People Who Care, a giving circle that brings together community members to collectively donate to one charity of choice.

Sage Milne was competing against several other local charities and her presentation on a project to support volunteer fire fighters in Huron County was the winner. She says the total amount isn't in yet, but she believes the prize was around 25-hundred dollars. The project Benefiting Rural Area Volunteer Emergency Firefighters is a firefighter project aimed at providing volunteer firefighters in Huron County with free confidential medical screening and education for cardiovascular health.

Milne says seventy-one per cent of the total number of firefighters in Canada are volunteers and a lot of those volunteers don't get the same training or resources that career firefighters get. She says Huron County has eighteen fire halls and a large volunteer workforce. This project was initiated to support those volunteer firefighters. The project aims to support volunteer firefighters by providing access to free, confidential medical screening where there may be a shortage of opportunities from primary care providers in rural areas to both provide screening and educate on their personal risk for cardiovascular disease. Research shows that of the many volunteer firefighters, only a small portion had relevant physical screening tests performed within the past year.