Indian River Receives SAFER Grant Award for Recruitment Campaign

The Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response Grants (SAFER) was created to provide funding directly to fire departments and volunteer firefighter interest organizations to help them increase or maintain the number of trained, "front line" firefighters available in their communities. The goal of SAFER is to enhance the local fire departments' abilities to comply with staffing, response and operational standards established by the NFPA (NFPA 1710 and/or NFPA 1720).

Indian River Volunteer Fire Company was awarded $125,788 under this initiative to ameliorate the concerns that:

·         Approximately one-half of Indian River’s volunteers are over the age of 60;

·         Young volunteers are needed to keep up with the training and physical demands of the tasks;

·         New members will alleviate time for the current members to coordinate training and other fire company activities; and

·         Scholarship opportunities for the recruitment process.

This grant award will target and focus on a designated population group (age group 18-35) to recruit volunteers from the immediate community to provide services for the fire district of Indian River.

The Indian River Volunteer Fire Company has retained a social medial advertising group to develop a social advertising campaign who are certified specialist in this designated area.  This will be the initial phase of this grant project with additional initiatives and objectives to commence at a later date.

In the immediate foreseeable future, various media outlets will start hosting these initiatives and will include some of Indian River’s volunteers.

This grant award documentation was created with the coordination of a professional grant writing firm and our internal grant coordinator.

Information regarding SAFER Grants can be obtained by viewing the following link: https://www.fema.gov/staffing-adequate-fire-emergency-response-grants.

Indian River's Membership Application Link:  http://www.irvfc.com/page/become-a-member