GREEN BAY (NBC 26) — Green Bay community members will now have the ability to donate directly to the Green Bay Metro Fire Department. The department started the Green Bay Metro Fire Foundation to give donors a chance to support firefighters in a more personal way.
“The foundation we really see as a mechanism for donors to partner with us and provide resources for our personnel even more than what we currently have," said Green Bay Metro Fire Chief Matthew Knott.
The foundation is supported by the Greater Green Bay Community Foundation. A first donation of $10,000 was made by H.J Martin and Son Incorporated at a press conference Wednesday.
Chief Knott says the new foundation will help supplement the funding the department already gets from the city.
"As funding gets tighter and tighter, we’re looking at other ways to make ends meet and make sure that we’re able to provide the great, heightened level of services that we provide our citizens," Knott said.
"Whether it’s a non-profit organization, school, or a department like this, many times the need of a community are well outweighing what resources are available," said Dennis Buehler, the President and CEO of the Greater Green Bay Community Foundation. "We work with donors everyday who are looking to express their support for important institutions like the fire department.”
One of the endeavers the department hopes the foundation will help with is finding a new facility to replace fire stations 1 and 3, both of which city officials say are showing their age.
Green Bay alderpersons Jennifer Grant and Melinda Eck previously created an ARPA proposal to build a new station, combining stations 1 and 3.
The proposal secured $1 million, but the two say they wanted to do more.
Now, they hope this foundation will help that new station become a reality. Donors can even sponsor specific rooms.
There is also a wide array of equipment that donors can help the department purchase.
"Whether it's a new cardiac chest compression device, whether it's investments in technology, there's a lot of different things we can partner on that maybe have been a little more difficult to budget for in the past," Knott said.
Above all, Chief Knott says he wants to make the donations personal to the donor.
“What we really want to do is make this individual to the donor," Knott said. "$5 helps, $10 helps, and what we’d really like to do is earmark those funds to meet whatever that specific donor is looking for.”
To learn how you can make a donation, you can visit the Greater Green Bay Community Foundation website.
