Budget Cuts Leave Firefighters Hungry

During the week, a normal evening at the has volunteers arriving for duty at 6 p.m., with the lead volunteer being issued a $40 debit card to use toward dinner for the crew. But with , the county has eliminated food expenses for volunteers for the rest of the fiscal year.

"Last year, the station was allotted an $18,000 budget for stand-by food to feed our crews," Fire Chief James P. Stanton said.

Stanton said that last year the crew put in 70,000 hours of stand-by time, and when looking at the allotted budget he said, "it doesn't come out to a whole lot of money." The budget cuts came in the middle of a year cycle, Stanton explained, and the fire station's budget was basically cut in half.

When the crew had the $40 per shift food budget, the lead volunteer would head to to purchase 4 pounds of ground beef, sloppy joe mix, rolls, salad fixings and fruit and come back to the firehouse to cook dinner for 10, according to KVFD volunteer administrative worker John Kelly.

Kelly said that other meals include grilled cheese sandwiches, spaghetti with sides, roasted chicken and other fixings, but now with only a few debit cards left, volunteers are reaching into their own pockets to provide meals.

"Volunteers are digging into their own pockets and buying take-out from various places ... in K-town," Kelly said.

He said that volunteers have started going to and more often, and have been ordering Chinese. Since the volunteers are supporting local businesses with or without the use of the county's debit cards, Kelly said he hopes that people and business in the community can start to help providing meals and food supplies.

If people, restaurants or businesses are interesting in making a donation, they should contact the fire station, and arrangements will be made to make sure that the contributions go to that specific fund instead of to the general fund, according to Chief Stanton.