FIREFIGHTERS TO THE RESCUE
Charitable foundation offers survivors support after the fire is out
Carmelle Sproule, with Calgary Firefighters Association president Mike Carter, saw her Douglasdale home go up in flames in early 2017. The association’s Charitable Foundation is a recipient of this year’s Calgary Herald Christmas Fund.
Christmas of 2016 was a happy time for Carmelle Sproule. She’d recently moved in with her boyfriend, Kirk, and was looking to start the New Year enjoying her new home in Calgary’s southeast Douglasdale neighbourhood.
Nine days into 2017, those dreams for the future turned into a nightmare. Late in the evening of Jan. 9, she emerged from the basement to find a fire had started near the living room couch. “We grabbed our fire extinguishers and tried to put it out, but as we were trying, it hit the drapes,” says the 31-year-old, her voice shaking at the memory. “The smoke came up so fast, we realized we couldn’t stop any of it.” Sproule and her partner grabbed their dog, Ruby, and raced out to their neighbours’ house, where they called 911. The fire truck arrived within minutes, but it was too late to save their home. “Our house was completely gone in five minutes, it was just unbelievable,” she says. “I was in shock for a good two weeks after and still today, I sometimes can’t believe it really happened.”
Stories like Sproule’s are familiar to the men and women who daily answer the call to rescue both life and property in our city. “We go there and do our job and then leave, but often wish we could do more,” says Mike Carter, president of the Calgary Firefighters Association. “People who are affected by such crises need so much more.”
That’s why Carter and his eightmember executive of the association recently launched the Calgary Firefighters Charitable Foundation (calgaryfirefighters.org), a charitable organization to help Calgarians affected by fire or other disasters. The foundation, now in its second year, aims both to assist victims in their immediate needs, as well as providing longer-term benefits such as fire safety and health education, expanded community outreach and scholarships.
The Calgary Firefighters Charitable Foundation is one of the recipients of the 2018 Calgary Herald Christmas Fund. The brainchild of Herald newsroom employees back in 1991, the fund has raised just under $27 million since its inception nearly three decades ago.
The funds go directly to local social agencies dedicated to addressing critical needs in our community. Each year, a volunteer selection committee made up of Postmedia employees selects worthy charities from more than 100 applications, featuring their stories in the Herald and thereby providing readers the opportunity to help out. Funds raised from the Christmas Fund will also help the foundation with its SAFE program (Support After Fires and Other Emergencies), a three-tiered assistance that begins with on-site provisions such as backpacks with water and postdisaster tips and includes funding for various post-emergency costs.
In addition to being one of this year’s worthy Herald Christmas Fund recipients, the Calgary Firefighters Charitable Foundation is also partnering with the Calgary Herald to host the New Year’s Eve Hot Spot, a gala fundraiser at Hotel Arts on Dec. 31, 2018 (for tickets and info, go to yycnye.ca).
The idea for an official charitable foundation for the Calgary Firefighters Association, says Carter, has been years in the making. “It started as a conversation about how we can help people beyond just showing up and doing our jobs,” he says of the association already known for its charitable work in the city, including the Firefighters Burn Unit at Foothills Hospital and an annual Christmas event for thousands of needy children at the Corral. “We wanted to do a little more for the people we help.”
In developing the SAFE program, Carter turned to people like Sproule for assistance. “I was one of the lucky ones, I have family in the city and we had a place to go right away,” says Sproule, who, with Kirk, runs a construction and renovation company. “But we had lost everything, including our passports and other identification, so getting advice and assistance on things like that would help.”
Vouchers for emergency food and supplies was another of her suggestions. “We didn’t need that because we had so many people to take care of us,” she says. “I didn’t even manage to salvage my wallet, which happens to a lot of people. You can’t get money out of the bank, you have no credit cards and not even a way to prove you are who you say you are.”
For her, help on the less visible, longer-lasting effects of such a trauma would have proved invaluable. “I had never experienced shock to that degree,” she says. “There are definitely a lot of ways assistance can be provided.”
Carter says tips from fire and disaster victims like Sproule have helped them formulate both immediate and future plans for the Calgary Firefighters Charitable Foundation, known to him and his fellow firefighters as “CF2.”
“We’ve got a lot of exciting things we hope to roll out,” he says. “I can’t wait to see what it will be like in 10 years from now.”
For Sproule, the future is looking a lot brighter than it did in January of 2017. She and Kirk recently married and having been insured, were able to start a new life in a new home. “We replaced everything and we’ve moved on,” she says. “The firefighters that came to our rescue were amazing and I’m not surprised that they want to do even more for people.”
To donate, call 403-235-7481 or go to https://secure.e2rm.com/registrant/startup.aspx?eventid=273670 To read other Christmas Fund stories, go to calgaryherald.com/ christmas fund