If you can spare a few dollars to help fight muscular dystrophy, keep the cash close by as you drive through West Seattle – local firefighters are out asking you to “Fill the Boot“ for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. This morning we spotted Seattle Fire Department Lt. Sue Stangl and the Admiral District’s own Engine 29 at Admiral Chevron; she says they’ll be back in that area and near Taco Time at 35th/Fauntleroy starting around 4:30 this afternoon, to catch people heading back home.
I always get excited for some reason when they are on the corners as Im driving by.Seems they always catch me with my last dollar but I always feel good giving it to them.
How is it that municipal employees, firefighters no less, are entitled to solicit on-hour donations, and stage those solicitations in uniform and with city-owned fire trucks? I’d love to get an explanation from the city attorney’s office and the fire department’s public information office. Oh, and how did firefighters happen to choose to solicit for the MDA? It’s an honorable nonprofit, but this business of soliciting in plain sight seems to cross so many ethical boundaries I don’t know where to begin.
They volunteer their time, according to coverage on the firefighters’ union website.
http://www.iaff27.org/mda?page=1
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Fire trucks and uniformed firefighters are seen around here in more charity/nonprofit events than I can count. I doubt it’s unique to Seattle; North Highline firefighters and several of their vehicles participated in Jubilee Days last weekend. Police have similar activities – note our coverage of the Polar Plunge at Alki, benefiting Special Olympics, the past couple years. If you want to submit a complaint about uniformed personnel participating in fundraisers, police have the Office of Professional Accountability, but I can’t find the counterpart for SFD – the city Customer Service Bureau could probably point you in the right direction, http://www.seattle.gov/customerservice
MEJ,
You could begin by going and asking the firefighters your questions and I’m sure you would get your answers. While you are there drop a dollar in the boot and see how that makes you feel.
Whether firefighters volunteer their time (and the city’s equipment) in pursuit of fundraising is beside the point. It’s the ethics that I question. After all, the appearance of uniformed personnel conducting a nonprofit fundraiser, and using city fire trucks as a backdrop, implies a municipal endorsement that I doubt exists. I mean, would you donate the same few dollars to MDA if the firefighters — now dressed in jeans and t-shirts with no fire truck in sight — passed the hat (or boot) at an intersection? Maybe, maybe not. MDA is an honorable nonprofit, but do the ends justify the means?
The issue of firefighters collecting while on duty has been discussed and approved by the City of Seattle, Seatt FD, and IAFF27. In the last few years of firefighters collecting there have been signigicant response or safety problems. The firefighters have doubled if not more than doubled the amount they raised in past efforts before collecting while in service available to respond.
Yes, MEJ I would still have donated had they been wearing jeans, and in fact the fireman that I gave my $$ to had no firetruck in sight, he walked to the intersection he was at from the station. I would say you’re actually pretty unethical for questioning the ethics of this fundraiser. Someone correct me if I’m wrong but this particular one only happens once a year right? I will still gladly give in the future.
Casey – it is listed on the IAFF site as yesterday and today. (We spotted a firefighter in The Junction yesterday but we were rushing to something else and I didn’t get my camera out in time … we’ve gotten press releases about national MDA efforts but these local ones tend to go unannounced till you bump into a firefighter somewhere …)
Our firefighters do great work! Thanks for helping support your community. I’m always happy to drop a few dollars in the boot!
When I saw the comment by MEJ earlier, it mad me angry and I knew I shouldn’t respond out of anger. Now, it just makes me sad. I cannot understand how this could be anything but positive, whether our firefighters were on the clock or not. When I saw them as I came off the bridge, it made me smile. If they were on the clock, their trucks were right there. Had there been a call, these terrific public servants would have headed out immediately to 1) protect us and 2) quite possibly put themselves in danger. How can there be any downside to these public servants spending time engaging with and contributing to our community rather than just spending their time at the station? I know that they do a lot of work around the station when not on calls, but they also have a reasonable amount of “waiting” time. I can only applaud them, whether they volunteer the time or use their work time to do good.
It is kind of ironic that the price of fuel is in the background of a photo asking for donations. Just sayin’
My dad is a 95 year-old retired Seattle fire fighter and I remember when he did this 50 years ago. They called it “Musculardistrophying”. Great to see that firefighters are still doing it!
I understand MEJ’s concerns and share them. Not only that, but based on research I have done on MDA and some of the victims of its campaign, I won’t donate to them. Bitter? No, I just have a different opinion.
MEJ & newnative… Seriously? Wow. You two need to find something more creative to do with your time – like go raise some money for a charitable organization!
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The IAFF and fire departments nationwide have been partnered with the MDA to raise funds for this cause for 57 years now. This isn’t the first year of being on the streets collecting donations. Many of the people you’ll see out there collecting, no matter where it is – Seattle, Burien, Redmond, Spokane… are off-duty firefighters and their families who come in on their own time to collect alongside with, and even separately from, those who are working. Take a closer look around next time you see them out collecting – you might even see someone in a wheelchair participating too – someone who the money that is raised actually helps.
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http://www.iaff.org/MDA/history.asp
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It’s naysayers like you that prompted the City Council to pass a resolution in 2008 supporting the Fire Department’s efforts to selflessly raise money for the MDA! You’re not the first ones to complain. And you won’t be the last. Yet the MDA Fill the Boot campaign will continue every year until there’s a cure. Guaranteed.
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http://clerk.seattle.gov/~archives/Resolutions/Resn_31078.pdf
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I hope that no one in your family is ever diagnosed with any of the many diseases that the MDA is working to find a cure for. Seems like only then might you appreciate what the firefighters are out there doing.
Sorry, comment time is over.
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