Service To Others Is Why They Do It

Cory May carries debris out of a residence in the Midland, Michigan area.

Midland, Michigan – The name on the truck and trailer’s side says ‘Professionally Staffed by Volunteers.’ New Sharon Fire and Rescue has helped to organize relief missions for fifteen years now.

Their first mission was to Biloxi, Mississippi, after Hurricane Katrina, and since then, they have traveled to New York to help after Superstorm Sandy and to Port St. Joe after Hurricane Michael swept ashore in Florida.

They’ve dug up the mud after flooding in Nebraska and Louisiana and searched for bodies in Joplin, Missouri.

Their experience in disaster areas has proven to be an asset locally after tornados struck Pella and Marshalltown. These are just several of the places they’ve gone and helped.

Two weeks ago, a group of seven volunteers headed to central Michigan, to help the people impacted by the collapse of the Edenville and Sanford Dams, which forced 10,000 people to evacuate their homes.

“We started out doing this many years ago, and didn’t anticipate that we would be doing it today,” says New Sharon Fire and Rescue Captain Steve Gerard.

Gerard was the New Sharon Fire Chief that lead that first mission to Biloxi all those years ago.

Their mission has always been to help first responders recover. Those individuals often haven’t had an opportunity to take care of their own homes since they are busy helping their community.

With all the first responders in the dam break area helped, Gerard and the team of volunteers turned their attention to the residents still in need of help.

Oskaloosa Reserve Firefighter Cory May was one of those volunteers who answered Gerard’s call to help the people recover from the flooding.

“I do not hesitate whenever Steve calls me,” says May. “I do what I can to get the time off and go along with it. It’s a lot of hard work but the crew that you’re with, yeah, there’s some older retired guys or some younger guys that come with us all the time. It’s a good camaraderie of people. We all get along, we all have fun, we bust our butts, but at the end of the night we go back to the hotel room and we laugh we joke. Yeah, we have fun. It’s a good time. You help a lot of good people and you meet a lot of interesting people. It’s well worth it.”

One of the residents who the crew of New Sharon Fire and Rescue helped, after his home was flooded out by Wixon Lake, was Ernie Dinninger.

“So I’m going to start crying. You know, my son was going to help, and the neighbor across the street was going to help me. Other than that, we had no insurance, and we’re gonna have to do everything by ourselves, and I didn’t realize how big a job it was. So when he [Gerard] came and said, you know, do you need help, I said yeah. I’m just thinking maybe one or two guys, but no, nothing like this. These guys are phenomenal. When they first came in, they were very professional. [The] gentleman over here in the Army hat was the first one that came in, and you could just tell that they were sincere in what they were doing. And I’ll be honest with you, we’re between a rock and a hard place; we had to get some help. I showed him we didn’t have the living room done yet, Ernie added. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate what you’re doing.”

“Ernie is a character himself. He’s a jokester, you know. He loves life, but he was in a tough spot. We ended up tearing drywall out, and the floors down to the floor joists in his house,” added May. “You know he was in there every step of the way, helping us wherever he could. He was lost too. He didn’t know what to do, you know. They don’t have insurance, and insurance isn’t helping them with anything up here.”

“That was a big job, and it took you know, two and a half days, but you know we’re lucky we stopped at that one—Ernie’s gonna impact all of our lives forever.”

Asking Ernie if he’s surprised that there are groups out there like this, his response was, “Yes. You know, I’ve heard about it. But unless you are part of it, and are involved in it, you have no idea how important it is. To be honest with you, you know, we see on TV about the floods and hurricanes, and it’s like yeah okay, even when they said we were going to get a flood. Yeah, we’re thinking okay we’re gonna get six-seven inches of rain may be in our yard—nothing like what happened. Seriously, I mean, it’s just amazing. I appreciate what you’re doing. I mean, like I said when they left, I almost started crying.”

“I’m glad it’s over,” says May. “I miss home. I miss my friends, I miss my family, but I love what I do when I go on these trips. I meet a lot of amazing people. They impact my life as much as we impact theirs, and I’m just, you know, sorry I couldn’t help more than we did out here, but you know we have our limited time. I can’t wait to go on the next one.

In closing, Gerard said, “So, we’re just trying to help them like if we were in the same situation. We know we would need help. Well, so that’s why we do it.”

<iframe width=”500″ height=”281″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/rOA6o-7RBa0″ frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture” allowfullscreen></iframe>