Weekly fundraiser sparks friendly competition between New Brunswick fire departments

Looking to stoke the fire, a weekly 50/50 draw for volunteer fire stations in New Brunswick is providing a bit of friendly competition between local departments.

“We’ve been trying to call out a few of the neighboring communities to compete,” said Salisbury Fire Chief Bradley MacLeod. “We’ve had the top spot a lot of the time.”

Last week, Salisbury called out Dorchester Fire Rescue. It’s a rivalry that’s continued on for another week.

“When we kind of started promoting it in our community, we surpassed them pretty quickly and so then it became a game of catch up and who could put whose fire out first or who could flame whose fire the biggest,” said Sara Boyce, a fire captain for the Dorchester Fire Department.

“When we came out on top, Salisbury said, ‘Next week let’s do best two out of three, let’s see what can happen,’” she added. “Firefighters love bragging rights.”

The draw started out with only 10 departments participating, but has quickly grown to 57 across the province.

“It’s always been a struggle to raise money for all the local departments,” said MacLeod.

However, with it now being a combined effort between all departments and an added incentive for people to donate, the weekly draw has been quite the success.

Each week the winning 50/50 ticket holder gets half of what’s raised overall and every station receives half of what they bring in, giving them the opportunity to directly help their own station.

“We just bought a new clam shell stretcher, goes underneath people, easy to move,” said Dorchester Fire Chief Greg Partridge. “[We’re] always looking for another defibrillator, we want one in every truck.”

“We like the best in equipment, so we don’t want to settle for anything less.”

Partridge joined the fire department about 48 years ago and says fundraising has always been an important part of the job.

He says that the association has always bought the rescue vehicles, which are used mainly for medical and sometimes motor vehicle accidents, and additionally money that comes in from the 50/50 will help fund that and extra equipment that’s needed.

One of the best parts about the fundraiser is each station gets to decide what needs to be purchased and when.

“Just recently we made a purchase for a new side-by-side, our old ATV that we’ve had before was getting aged, we had problems going to scenes where it just wouldn’t cooperate with us,” said MacLeod.

“We’re looking to get a new truck, and some of the equipment that we’ll be stocking on that truck will be directly results of the 50/50.”

However, even putting competition and funding aside, every station really does come out a winner.

“It’s a huge morale boost for firefighters because we are just community members, we are volunteers here. So, to know that the communities standing behind us and pushing us along, it’s a huge morale booster,” said Boyce.

It’s also been the main source of fundraising for many fire stations since the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Last week was the most successful for Dorchester and the most successful for the 50/50 in general,” said Boyce. “The largest single raised fundraising department had been Sackville actually and that was about a year ago in January and they had raised $6,675 for their department. So we surpassed that last week, which was huge and the jackpot almost doubled from the largest jackpot.”

MacLeod says by adding in a bit of public competition, it’s helped get the public more invested as well and has even branched outside of the stations.

“My wife, she’s from Sackville. She knows a lot of local people here in Salisbury who are from Sackville and when she’s promoting the draw and support for Salisbury, some of them are messaging her and saying, ‘Well I’ve got to route for my hometown,’” he said. “They may live here, but their loyalties are with their hometown.” 

As for the current rivalry, it’s all in good fun.

“Salisbury and Dorchester have a rivalry going on for the next week or so, but fire departments will rally behind each other because we’re all here to do the same thing, which is to help people,” said Boyce.

Tickets for the weekly draw are available for purchase until 9 p.m. on Thursdays in New Brunswick, but Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island also have a weekly draw to support local fire stations.