Greetings everyone. The phrase hot off the press has a new meaning in the past few weeks of August. The NVFC has been very active for the past eight weeks. Interim Chief Executive Officer Sarah Lee has kept a high focus on moving all programs forward and securing project grants. The Executive Board set a goal for the Council of 27,000 individual members in 2021.
This was recently achieved at 27,354 and still counting. This is an increase of over 1,100 compared to one year ago. While all states are members if they pay the annual $500 state dues, it is individual membership and grants which sustain the NVFC operations.
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) has awarded NVFC another $50,000 contract in promoting pipeline safety. For the fourth year, Motorola Foundation has awarded $25,000 in training efforts. Academy Sports/Brooks running shoes have raised $25,000 for NVFC through sales of firefighter-themed running shoes. Josh Cellars has announced a donation of $150,000 from the sale of limited-edition NVFC branded Reserve Lodi Cabernet Sauvignon. There have been numerous individual supporters with various activity gifts to NVFC. The latest was Marc Warren raising $4,000 for behavioral health initiatives through a 100-mile bicycle ride through the Great Allegheny Passage.
In other news, Emergency stars Randy Mantooth and Kevin Tinghe have announced their up-and-coming documentary Into the Unknown: Paramedics Journey. This documentary will highlight the critical role paramedics have in caring for communities through the eyes of a dozen paramedic crews around the nation. NVFC is one of several partner associations on this film which is currently in pre-production and has not yet indicated a firm release date. I will try to keep you posted.
NVFC has been active with the CDC in providing educational materials regarding COVID safety, best practices, and vaccines. For obvious reasons, they have not taken a strong position, but just the moving of information through their various social medial and web-based outlets.
It is worth mentioning there is currently a very large number of National Fire Administration (NFA) class openings both virtual and onsite for the remainder of 2021 and well into 2022. Combined totals including repeats on different dates approach 100. I have included the link if you are interested in checking this out. All NFA classes are free of charge and onsite classes have travel reimbursement provisions for those selected to attend. This list will likely have changed by the time you are reading this article but the link to see the list and get more information is apps.usfa.fema.gov/nfacourses/vacancies.
If you will be attending the Firehouse Exposition on September 14-18, be sure to visit the NVFC Booth (#932) while you are there and their training course Creating a Psychologically Healthy Fire Department, on September 18th at 8:00 am. Interestingly, their recruitment and retention classes for the 17th and 18th are already full and taking a waitlist. That all said, their Psychologically Healthy Fire Department Toolkit and related Behavioral Health Directory are receiving national attention in several magazines and newsletters. I have provided those links: www.nvfc.org/phfd/#toolkit and www.nvfc.org/phfd/#directory
An interesting but perhaps unknown fact is over 20 of the NVFC board, directors and assistant directors, serve on various NFPA committees. Some have the time to serve on two. Also reminding everyone that NVFC is coming to Kansas City on September 21-23 in 2024 for their Fall Meeting. I would hope that FFAM and the Missouri Fire Service would be able to offer some assistance.
More to come in the future. Thank you for your time and for allowing me to serve on your behalf with the NVFC.
FFAM
