Clearview firefighters put a wrap on breast cancer
If a fire truck isn’t already enough to turn heads, be prepared to do a double take when the passing truck is bright pink.
The largest truck in Clearview Fire Department’s fleet has been wrapped in pink to draw awareness to firefighters’ breast cancer fundraising campaign for the Canadian Cancer Society.
A dozen Clearview firefighters from all stations have volunteered to steer the campaign. They started by going out to the business community with a request to sponsor the cost of the wrapping of Tank 63, based at the fire hall in Nottawa
Station 6 firefighters Stuart Bicknell and Ashley Hopkins, said they were pleasantly surprised at how quickly they found 10 businesses to contribute $500 each in exchange for their logo being displayed on the side of the truck. That was enough to cover the full cost of the bright pink wrap, emblazoned with the Pink Truck Tour logo and website, designed by Bicknell’s spouse, Justine Bicknell of Brolly Media, so there was no cost to the township.
The website launched this week to collect donations from the community and to promote tour stops, where T-shirts will also be sold. The tour kicked off Sunday at the New Lowell soccer party and its next stop is at the GNE fall fair on Sept. 21-23. The truck will also be making appearances at Small Halls Festival, the Dunedin Cancer Walk, the Witches Walk in Stayner and Santa Claus Parades in Stayner and Creemore before the campaign comes to a close at the end of December. Firefighters are also forming a team for the CIBC Run for the Cure at Blue Mountain Village on Sept. 30.
Deputy Fire Chief Roree Payment said the department is always looking for good causes to support.
“We do have quite a few female firefighters on the department,” said Payment.
He said there are currently 11 women working as firefighters, which is a record number for the department.
He said everyone has mothers, grandmothers, daughters and wives so it seemed like a good idea to bring awareness to this worthy cause and other fire departments in other areas have had success with similar pink fire truck campaigns.
Payment said the Nottawa group, in particular, is keen to volunteer for community initiatives so when it came to deciding which truck to wrap, it was picked for that reason and also because it is a versatile piece of equipment (it carries six firefighters and doubles as a tanker and pumper) that can be seen responding to calls throughout the township.
Donations are welcome at pinktrucktour.ca.
