charity & Fire-ology firegeezer on 08 Jun 2008 05:09 pm
D. C. Area FF’s Pitch In For Hero2Hero
Last year Firegeezer alerted our readers to the magnificent Hero To Hero program originated and run by Liz Jackson of Tacoma, Washington. Her project involves collecting tens of thousands of T-shirts from fire, ems and police departments throughout the United States and Canada. These are then sent to deployed military troops in the Middle East with attempts to match up T-shirts with troops from the same locales. From heroes to heroes.
All the shirts are signed with good wishes and the signatures of the groups that are donating them and they are a tremendously big hit with the troops. You can read more about her project at the Hero To Hero website HERE.
This year Liz was restricted from her annual tour across the continent visiting 55 cities in 55 days because of an unfortunate medical problem. But she was able to get out to a few of them and this year’s last stop was at the Pentagon on Memorial Day. Since she couldn’t travel to the D. C. area departments, they all sent representatives - and over 400 T-shirts - to the Pentagon parking lot to put on a lovely greeting and presentation for Liz and her husband.
Joel Kobersteen addresses the participants
and presents the shirts to the Hero-To-Hero campaign.
Joel Kobersteen of IAFF Local 2068, Fairfax County, Va., organized and coordinated the event. It was such a success that Liz “appointed” Joel to be the East Coast organizer of next year’s tour. Liz keeps a blog journal of all her visits over the past few years and you can read her entry for this stop HERE. Click on it and you’ll see the photo gallery of nearly 200 pictures taken at the Pentagon that day, too.
Liz Jackson addresses the gathering
Firegeezer has Joel’s assurance that he’ll be passing on next year’s plans in plenty of time to help get our many readers involved with it. We’re looking forward to helping out.
The fire and police agencies that participated in the Memorial Day event were:
* Fairfax County (VA) Fire & Rescue Department and Local 2068
* City of Fairfax (VA) Fire Department and Local 2702
* Stafford County (VA) Fire & Rescue Department and Local 4012
* Arlington County (VA) Fire Department and Local 2800
* Charlottesville (VA) Fire Department and Local 2363
* Harrisonburg (VA) Fire Department and Local 3254
* Loudoun County (VA) Fire and Rescue Department and Local 3756
* Washington, D.C. Fire & EMS Department and Local 36
* Prince Georges County (MD) Fire Department and Local 1619
* Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority Fire Department and
Local 3217
* National Capital Area Federal Fire Fighters Local F121
* Fairfax County (VA) Police Department and IUPA Local 5000
* Pentagon Police Department
TV Channel 5 interviews Liz for the evening news
on 09 Jun 2008 at 1:29 pm 1.Mike "fossilmedic" Ward said …
Great job Joel!
Not sure if Statter’s label “The man who would be East Coast t-shirt king” will stick.
Mike
on 20 Oct 2008 at 11:52 pm 2.Liz Jackson said …
Wanted to tell you guys, you are all amazing and a special salute to FireGeezer for the support!
Hope you are all going through your drawers for the troops.
We’ve changed the program to accommodate my issues. (Hey, anyone who knows me knows I have issues! lol)
Check out the revised campaign … We’re asking for ONE shirt & ONE dollar from EVERY first responder once a year til they all come home.
YOU have the shirts, I have the troops who want them … Brilliant!
So you PLEDGE the number of shirts your department/station can come up with, PLEDGE it on the site, and we’ll provide you a unit to ship them to. Win-win … the dollar per shirt pays for you to ship the shirts directly to the troops, so you have direct contact for letters and photos. Cool, huh?
So, I may not be able to walk for long distances, or do the tour … but if you guys can be my legs til I get back on track, we won’t skip a beat .. or a troop!
Thanks all!
Liz
Feel free to email us if you have any questions: HeroShirts@aol.com
PS: The “shirt king” could stick, dunno. ( ;