Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 3/1/2021
SOUTH HADLEY – For the seventh year in a row, South Hadley Fire District Two has received two different grants from the state.
Lieutenant Mike O’Neill, who is also an EMT, said to qualify for the grant the department had to have members on staff who have taken a specific course. “In order to be eligible for the grant you need to have members that have taken Mass. fire and life safety course,” he said. “We have three members that are educators and plan to have a few more trained up in the coming years.”
The district, which was granted $2,532 in SAFE grant funds, will use the money in several ways. The first, O’Neill said, was to continue community outreach with regards to fire education.
“This grant helps our community outreach program, that is the new name we have called our Safe Program. It covers more topics than just for safety, it encompasses all safety issues,” he said. “We will use the school based grant for teaching fire safety at both of the schools in our fire district. The two grades we concentrate on are third and sixth.”
A second, separate part of the grant was the district’s receiving of $1,480 for the Senior SAFE grant. Similar to the SAFE Grant, the Senior Safe Grant is used for fire education, but is targeted towards senior citizens. O’Neill said the department planned to use this portion of the grant to connect with the town’s elderly population and remind them of the importance of fire safety.
“We will connect with the Council on Aging and attend fairs and events throughout the year to get fire safety messages out to the elders. We will also attend fairs at Mount Holyoke College to explain the importance of cooking safety and having an exit plan from their dorms,” he said.
Other ways the money is useful for the district, O’Neill said, is to help send members to classes, purchase new equipment and to help them network with other departments in the state.
“We also use the grant money to send members to classes to find new ways to get the messages of fire safety out in the community. Networking is a huge part of fire safety and being able to find new ways that other departments are spreading for safety messages,” he said. “The grant money helps us every year purchase new items to help spread our message about fire safety and get the messages we want out in the community.”
The South Hadley Fire District One also received SAFE Grant monies in the amount of $3,928 and the Senior SAFE Grant in the amount of $2,020, but could not be reached for comment.