Mother Nature cancels Valentine’s Day fundraiser
Mother Nature #MotherNature
For the past 15 years, the South Williamsport Fire Department has sold roses leading up to Valentine’s Day to raise money for the station. However, this year they had to cancel the fundraiser.
“Unfortunately, we have been experiencing a lot of bad weather throughout the country, and that ultimately delayed the shipping of the roses, and we didn’t get them in time to sell them,” said Chloe Smith of the South Williamsport Fire Department.
The flower sale is one of the department’s biggest fundraisers of the year. The fire department was planning to sell over 280 dozen roses.
“Not only do we not get the funds, but it helps out with training. The fundraising helps buy equipment,” said Grover Danley of the South Williamsport Fire Department.
“We definitely rely on fundraising because if we don’t have that new or current equipment, then we are not providing the best service possible for our community,” said Smith.
The flowers that came from Georgia are usually sold in the Beiter’s Furniture parking lot. Last year, the fire department raised over 3,0$00. Since then, they haven’t really been able to raise money.
“Especially with COVID-19 for the last year, we haven’t been able to have a lot of our bigger fundraisers like our weekly bingo or turkey fair,” said Smith.
The department says the loss of funds will hurt, but it really missed seeing folks from the community.
“We have definitely missed a lot of our community involvement over the last year. It has been hard not seeing the faces that we usually do, and these events are usually a way to get our faces out there to the younger people in our community,” said Smith.
Since the department has had a hard time raising funds in the last year, if you would like to donate, you can do so by sending your donation directly to the South Williamsport Fire Department.