by Kent Jennings Brockwell
Staff Writer
The Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department hit the pin on the head when it decided to sell commemorative lapel pins during the Super Bowl festivities earlier this month to raise funds for a renovated funeral engine.
JFRD Capt. Murray Kramer said more than $20,000 has been collected so far from the different fire stations and groups that sold the pins.
“It went very well,” Kramer said. “We are very pleased with the effort.”
Kramer said about 8,000 of the 10,000 pins made for the fundraiser were sold but efforts are underway to sell the approximate 2,000 remaining pins.
Theresa O’Donnell, director of special events for the City, helped Kramer come up with the pin’s design and with sales during Super Bowl week. O’Donnell said one of her staff members, Tiffany Valoa, has put the pins on the Internet and is targeting fire departments around the country to purchase the remaining pins. O’Donnell said she is also working with the firefighters credit union to sell the leftovers.
A majority of pins sold during Super Bowl week were purchased near the entrance to the NFL Experience on the Southbank. O’Donnell said a group of JFRD bicycle units stationed near the entrance had the best luck with their sales.
“That was a hot place,” she said. “We did extremely well over there.”
While Super Bowl participants bought a large portion of the pins as souvenirs, Kramer said a most of the firefighters selling the pins also bought a few for themselves.
“We had a lot of people buy them from within the department,” he said. “We are very pleased with that.”
Now that the JFRD has raised $20,000, Kramer said the fire truck will be sent to the body shop March 1 to be renovated into a funeral engine. While the $20,000 will help with the effort, Kramer said he doesn’t know the final cost of the renovation because the body shop that is working on the project, Johnny’s Custom Creations, is donating a portion of its labor costs.
Johnny Elliott, owner of Johnny’s Custom Creations, said he has talked to several other local body shop owners and different collision repair trade organizations and most have been willing to help out with the renovation.
“This is an awesome opportunity to do something for the firefighters that go out and risk their lives for us everyday,” he said. “Several body shop managers and owners are letting their workers come over and donate their time and materials.”
While he is planning to do the renovation work at cost to help save the JFRD money, Elliott said paint company Akzo Nobel Coatings has already committed to donate “a good part of the materials” for the project.
For the renovation, Elliott said he is going to repaint the fire engine and redesign the water tank section of the truck so it will be able to carry a casket.
The fire truck to be renovated is a 1980’s engine that the department used as a front line engine for many years. The truck is now being used at JFRD’s training academy but is about to be replaced by another soon-to-be-retired fire engine.
Many large metropolitan areas have dedicated fire engines designed to carry a fallen firefighter’s casket in a funeral procession. Kramer said Jacksonville has been trying to renovate one of its own retired fire trucks into a funeral engine for the past several years but until now have continually run into trouble raising non-tax dollars for the project.