The Extension Connection
ISU Extension offers Youth Fire and Emergency Services Day to emphasize community service while giving Iowa teens a close-up view of volunteer firefighting.
Visit the ISU Extension homepage.
Send a message:
Stanley R. Johnson, vice provost for extension, vpforext@iastate.edu
Mark Settle,
managing editor, msettle@iastate.edu
Laura Sternweis,
editor, lsternwe@iastate.edu
Nondiscrimination statement and information disclosures
Last update: July 2003
A quarterly publication of Iowa State University Extension
Firefighting program teaches teens about community service
Across Iowa, volunteer firefighters are among the most
visible people who give back to their communities. Some 90 percent of
the state’s firefighters are volunteers. That’s why Iowa State
University Extension offers Youth Fire and Emergency Services Day, emphasizing
community service while giving Iowa teens a close-up view of volunteer
firefighting.
“As Extension looks at Iowa’s changing future, we try to develop
programs that meet those needs,” said Jerry Chizek, ISU Extension
education director for Calhoun County. “This program emphasizes volunteering
and citizenship and gives teens an appreciation for the volunteer firefighters
in their communities.”
Developed by the Fire Service Training Bureau in 1999, the Youth Fire
and Emergency Service Day originally was conceived as a tool for recruiting
volunteer firefighters. Due to budget constraints it was about to be dropped
in 2001 when Chizek stepped in. He recruited Manson fire chief Keith Ostrander
to conduct the sessions and asked the Fire Service Training Bureau and
Iowa Firemen’s Association to look over and endorse the materials.
Today the program has been presented to hundreds of high school students
around the state.
“I don’t think I could possibly feel better about any program,”
Ostrander said. “As soon as schools hear about the program, they
want us to present it. Where we’ve already done it, they want us
to do it again.”
The program combines a morning classroom session with afternoon activities
in which students conduct a search-and-rescue operation, try on gear and
air tanks, handle fire hoses and nozzles and extinguish small fires.
“The kids who go through our program have more respect for firefighters and better appreciate our fundraising efforts,” Ostrander said. “In the meantime, they’re gaining ideas about community service that they may use later.”
**********
“The
kids who go through our program have more respect for firefighters.”
— Keith Ostrander, Manson fire chief