Washington Volunteer Fire and Rescue Company turns to the internet to raise its profile and explain its role
By James P. Gannon
The Washington Volunteer Fire and Rescue company is breaking new ground in communicating with the public by launching a website to raise its profile in the community and explain the crucial role of volunteer emergency services in a small, rural county.
The all-volunteer Washington company, which began serving the community in 1939, leaped into the Internet Age this week with the launch of its website. The initiative reflects the company’s realization that many people in the community, especially relative newcomers to the county, don’t understand how volunteer emergency services work, what they do, and how they can be sustained.
The website was designed by volunteer Sylvie Rowand, using ideas, information and photos from officers and other members of Company 1, as the Washington volunteer company is known. Rowand worked for free and the website was created and launched at very little cost, she said.
“We wanted to have a presence on the web to let the community know what we do,” Rowand said. While the county’s volunteer fire and rescue services may be well understood by long-time Rappahannock residents, she said, “we have many new people moving into the county and they are unfamiliar with volunteer services….We need to reach out to these people who have not lived here for a long time and are not familiar with what we do and how we do it.”
Eventually, the Washington company hopes the website might serve as a tool to help raise financial donations to support the work of the organization, which gets some taxpayer support but also depends heavily on fund-raising events and donations from locals to support its work and help pay for new equipment.
“I see it as a possible way to increase donations” over time, if not immediately, Rowand said. The website is not now designed to be a direct fund-raising tool, but as it evolves in the future, it may become that–possibly by offering a donations form that viewers could download to mail in a donation.
The multi-section website features many photos taken by company members that illustrate the fire and rescue work performed, along with information on the company’s history, activities, events, and its fund-raising for a new tanker. It also contains a “Who’s Who” list of the leaders of the organization, which has 39 volunteer members ranging in age from 16 to over 70. The website can be found at www.washingtonvolunteerfireandrescue.org.
Photo courtesy Washinton Volunteer Fire and Rescue Company.
-- James P. GannonComments
Comment from Sylvie Rowand
Time: September 29, 2008, 7:48 pm
I just want to clarify something: Flint Hill Volunteer Fire & Rescue has a web site: www.FlintHillFire.com. Albeit a modest one, with just a calendar of events and a group photo, it’s there. Washington is the first comprehensive web site that I know of for the county volunteer fire & emergency organizations.
We hope that the new web site will enhance communications with all residents. It is likely that other Volunteer Fire & Rescue companies will also have their own web sites in the future.
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