Kennard Volunteer Fire Department Marks 60th Anniversary
By Greg Ritchie
Messenger Reporter
KENNARD – The Kennard Volunteer Fire Department (VFD) celebrated its sixtieth birthday with a fundraising cookout to raise funds for the department with support from communities around the area.
The event, held Saturday, April 1, featured a barbecue cookout with brisket, ribs and other delicacies along with a drawing, car show and wagon rides for the kids. Lone Star Cookers from Magnolia had been preparing the food days before and were on hand to get the whole briskets out to hungry locals.
The Kennard VFD relies on donations and volunteers to carry out their important work. Even before the cookers arrived, several cars had already arrived looking to take home some of the smoked treats.
James Gest, Interim Assistant Chief, said they were grateful for the support.
“We serve the surrounding area and use everything from donations to grants,” Gest said. “We do have a little bit of city funding, but it’s not much, and that’s the reason we do these fundraisers.”
Gest showed off the gear the department has been able to accumulate and some of the training the members have been able to take part in. As an all-volunteer force, the members have full-time jobs and lives – but still give their time to keep the community safe.
One of the advantages of such equipment is the big tanker truck the department has which comes in handy in rural areas.
“We service probably one of the second largest areas around and get called to aid all the way into Trinity County and Angelina County,” Gest explained. “We’re very proud of our tanker as it helps out a lot, especially in the rural areas where we don’t have hydrant access.”
Gest agreed with other local department representatives who said volunteerism isn’t what it used to be, causing groups like Kennard VFD to be constantly short of trained people when an emergency hits.
“It is true, volunteers and volunteerism are a dying breed. We find the people that come and volunteer now had a father or brother or someone in a fire department,” Gest said. “I’ve been volunteering since I was 16 years old, so I’m about to hit 21 years doing this. But yes, volunteerism is slowly dying.”
Local fire departments offer training and need all types of volunteers – men and women, young and old – for a variety of roles. Anyone who feels they could help should reach out to their local department where they will find open arms and willing teachers.
“We will take anybody and everybody. We do like for you to have a clean record, but you don’t have to have training to start. Nobody has training when they first start!” Gest said. “We do training in-house and we also attend school in Livingston every year in February and we try to send as many as we can to Texas A&M during their fire school at the end of July,” Gest said. “Then there are multiple other classes that come up from time to time and a lot of vendors will actually put on classes in the use of the different equipment.”
The event was supported by Ratcliff VFD, Pennington VFD and Curry’s Grocery.
Greg Ritchie can be reached at [email protected]
