Helping and Learning

By Craig Crosby

Staff Writer

UNITY -- Meghan Fenton still vividly remembers the helplessness that settled in immediately after the shock of seeing a car accident. Her mind raced for ways to help, but she could do little more than offer words of comfort.

There, on the side of the road, Fenton made a decision. Never again would she know that helplessness. From then on, her mind would not go maddeningly blank when another needed help.

"I was riding through the town I live in and the car accident happened right in front of me," Fenton recalled. "I felt like I couldn't really do anything. I didn't have any training. I just kind of felt helpless. After that, I started to get into it."

And so began Fenton's service to the Unity Fire Department. In the year Fenton has served on the department, she has helped put out fires, worked accident scenes, and is already well into training that will allow her to do even more.

"My job is to assist anyone who needs assistance," she said. "I like the people I deal with. I like being active in the community."

Fenton is one of five Unity College students who are serving on the town's fire department this year. Over the past decade, Unity's college and its fire department have had a mutually beneficial relationship.

For the students, volunteering is not only a chance to help, but to receive valuable training that can serve as a launching pad into a career.

For the fire department, the students are helping to stave off the desperate lack of volunteers being experienced by many communities.

"It helps us out a lot," said Dennis Turner, the Unity department's chief. "We've had college students in the department for 10 years. Each year it has grown."

While all the volunteers are helpful, they are particularly useful when they enter the department already trained, Turner said.

"Pretty much all of us have come from a fire department back home," said Evan Franklin, a senior at the college who volunteered on the Durham fire department while still in high school.

Unity College students Addey Edmunds, left, and

Meghan Fenton listen to Unity firefighter and Emergency

Management Assistant Director Jeff Krantz and firefighter

Jason Johnson during a training session.

Franklin enjoys the camaraderie the department provides,

but most importantly, volunteering fills his need to be involved and help.

 

"It's hard to listen to a (fire) truck going down the road and know where they're going and not go," Franklin said. "Usually, whatever you're doing can wait."

While most of the student volunteers are conservation law students, that is not universal.

Meghan Bursey, for example, expects to graduate with a wildlife conservation degree in the spring. She has served on the department for more than three years and is just one class away from attaining her Firefighter 1 certificate, which will allow her, among other things, to enter burning buildings.

Bursey hopes to get a job with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, or other state conservation agency, and having a Firefighter 1 certificate will stand out on her resume. More importantly, Bursey is learning to excel in environments that throw many into panic.

"You can't be joking around on a fire scene," she said. "You have to be professional. You have to show people you know what to do. You have to be able to work and also understand what they're thinking and help them through this horrible thing they're going through."

William St. Michel, chief of the Durham fire and rescue department on which Franklin served and first vice president of the Maine Fire Chiefs Association, believes more departments should try to attract college students, and young people in general, with the promise of training. Many departments have avoided that because it naturally leads to a high turnover rate and expense, but the traditional base for volunteerism is drying up.

"We've definitely got to think outside the box because things are changing rapidly," St. Michel said.

Training that can include hundreds of hours of class time, coupled with a more mobile society and schedules that, despite modern conveniences, are less flexible than ever, have slowed the flow of new volunteers to a trickle. A decade ago, many volunteer departments had a waiting list, St. Michel said. That is no longer the case.

 

"The volunteer fire service is not only dwindling, it's graying," said Dana Lee, legislative advocate for the Maine Fire Chiefs Association.

Lee is working with the Maine Fire Commission, which is made up of fire departments, the State Fire Marshal's Office and other agencies to develop ways to retain current volunteers and recruit new faces. The group is submitting legislation on the Length of Service Awards Program, which would provide any volunteer firefighter who gives 25 years of dedicated service a $400 per month pension after reaching age 62.

The idea is to increase the number of people who can respond to an emergency and to get them to stick around.

"Right now, we're losing that battle," Lee said. "They're trying to sweeten the pot a little bit."

Unity College is one of the few schools in the state that produces a crop of volunteers, but it is not alone.

A portion of the Fire Science Technology students at Southern and Eastern Maine Community Colleges, in Portland and Bangor respectively, have boarded in community departments for the past 16 years. Students benefit from free room and board, and the chance to put their classroom learning into practice, while the communities in which they serve have guaranteed responders.

"If everything runs appropriate, it's a win on three parts," said Timothy Carr, department chairman for the fire science program. "By having students live in the station, it's tremendously improving departments' response times."

Students must interview and submit resumes to fill the 45 positions in southern Maine and 10 to 12 in the Bangor area.

"It started off with one student and now we're approaching 60," Carr said.

Unlike the fire science students, however, Unity College students' volunteerism is largely outside of their specific career goals. Fitting in weekly meetings, intensive training and calls to respond at all hours can be overwhelming, Fenton said.

"It's hard sometimes," she said. "The pager goes off and you take off. You don't know what the teacher's thinking. It's hard to tell what people think."

Mick Womersley, Unity's interim provost and human ecology professor, is proud, yet not surprised, by the students' dedication.

"What I think about Unity students, more than any one thing, is that we have some of the most service-oriented students in the United States right now," he said. "I have student in Iraq, I have students in Afghanistan, students in search and rescue, students on the fire department, and students working to save the planet. I am proud as heck of every single one of them."

Student Bob Costa spent more than eight years in the military, most recently as a specialist in the Army Reserve. He switched his major to wildlife conservation from conservation law after he was injured in Iraq and a 15-inch rod was inserted in his leg. Serving on the fire department helps satisfy Costa's desires to help and be involved.

"I had some friends in the military that talked to me about it," Costa said of volunteering for fire service. "More recently, it's something to give back to the community. I can help save people, property and make friends in the long run."