Friendly Corp to donate equipment to Wilbraham Fire Department

Date: 8/16/2011

Aug. 15, 2011

By Chris Maza

Reminder Assistant Editor

WILBRAHAM — The Friendly Ice Cream Corporation has offered to lend a hand to the town of Wilbraham as it continues to develop its plan for the expanded main fire station on Boston Road.

Representatives from the Wilbraham headquartered restaurant company’s Design and Construction Department spoke with members of the Main Fire Department, Building Department and Tecton Architecture at the Aug. 10 meeting of the Fire Addition and Renovation Building Committee to discuss what equipment the department might be interested in utilizing at the station.

Any equipment received by the Fire Department would be a donation from the company.

With stores and restaurants constantly moving and closing, Friendly Ice Cream consistently has containers full of equipment that has been removed from old locations, the majority of which is in perfect working order.

While the conversation revolved primarily around items for the renovated kitchen and dining area, including flooring materials, furniture, convection ovens, microwaves and stainless steel countertops, the committee was also showed interest in taking advantage of stainless steel shelving that could be used for equipment storage throughout the facility.

Deep two- or three-bowl sinks were also seen as useful tools by members of the department, who saw potential for their use in areas such as the decontamination room.

Tecton is anticipated to visit the Friendly Ice Cream storage facilities in the near future in order to ascertain what equipment would work within the department.

Once the equipment is chosen and measured, Tecton will be able to incorporate it into the plans and develop three-dimensional images to give the committee a realistic idea of how those items would look in the new facility.