Warman Fire Rescue delivers birthday smiles

Firefighters showing up on area kids’ doorsteps with gifts and sirens blaring

When Warman Fire Chief

Russ Austin heard that a fire department in Texas was delivering birthday gifts to children living in isolation because of the COVID-19 pandemic, he knew he had to bring the idea to his home community.

The department put out a call on Facebook Wednesday night, asking if there were kids in the Warman area with birthdays coming up who would like a visit and gift from the fire department. The next day they did seven birthday deliveries and more are being booked until the end of April. Austin spoke with the Starphoenix about the initiative.

Q Why is it important for the fire department to do this?

A I feel for these kids being shut in, and a birthday is a really big milestone in a kiddo’s life. And some of them are too young to understand why they can’t have a party or why they can’t go to a restaurant for supper or that kind of thing.

I knew we had a lot of kiddos in the city that are ages 12 and under that would appreciate a visit. It’s pretty obvious that we are in a very youthful community because I think we’ve got over 100 kiddos now whose parents are asking for a visit and we’re going to do our best to accommodate every one of them.

Q How do you deliver the gifts while respecting calls for social distancing ?

A We had a bunch of brand new supplies that we had bought for an open house here in May. So we had a really good supply of public education materials, brand new in sealed containers: plastic fire helmets to crayons and activity books and pencils and different things like that.

So we’re able to take this stuff basically right out of the box, put them into sealed giant Ziploc bags and then we print off a special birthday card for them (so they can) someday tell their grandkids about the birthday that they had when the COVID-19 thing was going on.

So when we go to a house to drop the packs off it’s a sealed package and we stay isolated from them. And we wear medical gloves and usually give them a high-five through the window and then put it at their doorstep to maintain our distance and just make sure we’re all following the rules.

(Crews) give parents a message when they’re getting close and then we show up with the whole lights and sirens and all the good stuff to let everybody know that something special is going on and a special kiddo is getting a special delivery.

Q What kind of response are you getting?

A Every kid loves fire trucks, I’m fairly sure. When we roll up (you see) the smile on their face and the surprise that somebody actually is showing up to their door to bring them something for their birthday from outside the house is pretty amazing.

And there’s even more of a response from the parents. We’ve had quite a few teary-eyed parents and just people very appreciative of, one, that we’re still out there serving our community and responding to calls and stuff, and two, that we can find time to bring a little bit of joy to the kiddos that are locked in for their birthday.