Photo/ Beaverlodge Fire Rescue/ Facebook

By Courtney Almeida

Easter

The Beaverlodge Fire Department hosts its annual Easter event

Apr 20, 2019 | 7:00 AM

The Beaverlodge Fire Department is hosting their ninth annual Easter Event. On April 20 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. the department will be hosting various activities including a meet and greet with the guest of honour, the Easter Bunny.

“It’s a good way to get our youth engaged,” says Stan Metcalfe. The Chief of the Beaverlodge Fire Department talks about the challenges the department has with, “trying to attract volunteers and for people even to know what their volunteer Fire Departments are doing.”

Metcalfe says its important for the Fire Department to host events like this to showcase the work that the volunteer rescuers are doing within the community. “We can show people our trucks, we can talk about the types of calls we go on.”

He highlights the necessity of the department to connect with kids at a young age.

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“Maybe we’re not going to have them volunteer next week but five, six, seven years from now. Perhaps, when their getting a bit older, it might spark that interest in them.”

Planned activities include a meet and greet with the Easter Bunny, a BBQ featuring hotdogs and cotton candy, as well as a colouring contest and face painting.

Admission to the event is by food bank donation.

“Its another way for us to give something to the community but also give back to our local food bank as well, in the process,” said Metcalfe.

In past years, the Department used their annual Easter gathering as a fundraiser, but Metcalfe says, “we quickly realized that wasn’t really the benefit of the event. The benefit was getting the community to come out and see what we’re about.”

Metcalfe describes his favourite memory from past events.

“We had an Easter egg hunt so we had the Fire Trucks parked out front and then we put all kinds of stuff on the truck and the kids would go hunt. For about two weeks afterwards, every time we’d go to get on the truck there’d be a Mars bar or chocolate egg rolling out from underneath the seat as you go on a call.”

The Chief recalls a particularly eventful occurrence at least years Easter event, when the Petting Zoo came to life as the department got a call for a structure fire during the event and had to rush out.

“We had to leave and then a lot of our auxiliary members had to man the station and keep the event going for us while we went and fought this structure fire. It made for an interesting day.”

Learn more about the Beaverlodge Fire Department here.