I stuffed it all into a big yellow envelope, drove down to the post office and dropped the dang thing in the box. It's out of my hands and into the Lord's. (Well, first the postman's, but then ultimately the Lord's.)
What, you may ask? Why, my college application. The thing that makes the college decide whether or not they want to deal with me for the next two years of my life.
To assist the admissions board with this very daunting decision, I was required to write two essays, one of them on a topic of my choice that holds personal importance. I could have written about farming or playing music or weedwhacking around the mailbox, but I've written about all those things many times before (jk I've never written about weedwhacking, though maybe I should think about doing it...). I went for something fresh, something that's become a big part of my life in the last year, which is the volunteer fire department.
The application called for no more than 650 words - I could literally write an entire book about my first seven months in the fire department, but we'll save that for later. As it was I had to shave down my essay quite a bit, but I'm sharing the un-edited version here on the blog in case it's of interest to anyone.
So what do you think. Will the college folks like this?
Volunteers
By
Emma Anderson
Think of every small town in the US that you’ve ever lived in, seen, or driven through. Where I live, some of them don’t have much. A gas station, a drug store, a car repair shop, maybe a stoplight. Some towns just aren’t big on the glitz and glamor. But tell me something. No matter how tiny, rural, and far-removed from any sizable city, what is one thing that every community in the US has to offer?
That’s right: the volunteer fire department.
I have yet to find a town, or village or hamlet or borough or whistle-stop, that does not have a volunteer fire department.
Why is this? It is because we need these people, these public servants, no matter who we are or where we live, whether it’s far out in the boondocks or right in the middle of a thriving suburb. The volunteer fire department is an essential part of any community because of the irreplaceable service and dependability they provide to their citizens.
Though it is an important part of my life now, the fire service is not something I ever thought I would be a part of. Growing up nextdoor to our town fire station, the most I knew about it was that the whistle went off every Tuesday night around 7:30 when they ran the radio check. As I grew older and got to know firefighters from my own and neighboring departments, I began to get a better picture of what the volunteers actually do. It sounded to me like a great adventure. I had never done any kind of service for my community before. At age eighteen, thinking it was time to remedy this lack of community involvement, I submitted an application and was soon voted in.
Even though the station is built on land my grandfather used to own, I am the first of my family to join. I was the first new member the department had seen in a long time, and the only girl. I think I scared them as much as they scared me.
I soon found out that the volunteer fire department is a unique entity. It is a branch of civil service, sometimes a social club, but mainly a community of ordinary, everyday citizens who are part of something extraordinary. As an emergency service, it’s not always taken seriously, due to the small number of members in most departments and the lack of training that is often seen in a volunteer situation. As a local resource, however, it’s one of the best things we have.
A fire department encompasses much more than -- and I quote -- “putting the wet stuff on the red stuff.” We give back to the community in many different ways, with EMS services, auto extrication, water rescue, tech rescue, and of course fire rescue. All of these are responsibilities of the fire department; some more than others, depending on your district and your protocols. But the main goal of the volunteer department is a universal one, and that is to provide help when a disaster strikes.
Being an emergency responder, whether it be in fire or EMS or both, is about coming to the aid of someone who is in trouble. A fire department has a contract with their town. They provide a service that they are pledged to uphold. If they don't do that, there is a problem.
My volunteer department is made up of blue-collar working men, retired state troopers, servicemen, and one eager farmgirl. There are firemen with decades of experience and knowledge, and there’s me, who is learning more all the time. We are small, but when we come together we are mighty. Though it has been less than a year since I joined, already I’ve seen time after time my guys go in there and do their thing, bravely and efficiently, where others didn’t have the training or didn’t have the will. Other times, they have taken hours out of their day to help somebody with the most trivial of problems, like pumping out a basement flooded with two feet of water, or getting up at four in the morning to haul a generator down to the corner stoplight that lost power because of a rainstorm.
Roughly 70% of firefighters in the US are volunteer. Volunteers are on call all the time, every day, any of the year. They do not receive a dollar for it. Not a paycheck, not a pension, not a tax break. It’s a thankless job at times. Other times, the glory we’re awarded is overwhelming.
There is a common mindset I have noticed in the volunteers from my department. When things go wrong, you deal with them the best you can. Whether it’s a fully engulfed house fire, or a car wreck, or a call at three A.M. for a nosebleed, or just the new girl backing the ambulance into the door of the truck bay*, the volunteers take it in stride. It’s what they’re best at.
At the end of the day it’s not about the fancy helmets or the lights and sirens. Being a volunteer in the fire department is about being ready to step in when you’re needed. It is one of the most honorable services I can think of, and one I am proud to be a part of.
(*I did actually do this.)
