North Olmsted Firefighter Carl Schanz tells a group of touring North Olmsted High School students how using fitness equipment benefits the department. (West Life photo by Larry Bennet)

Students get firehouse feast for helping out
By Jeff Gallatin
North Olmsted
Published Feb. 25, 2009

A group of North Olmsted High School students fired up about raising funds for a good cause got to feed that fire at a North Olmsted Fire Station Friday as a reward.

After students in Amanda Jamieson’s junior English class raised more than $2,000 on the Dec. 19 Day of Giving they got to pick their prize. The group selected having a breakfast and tour at Fire Station 1, which holds the city fire department’s largest shift and headquarters. The funds were given to the Muscular Dystrophy Association, which the city firefighters also support with an annual car show and other activities.

“They were pretty excited by it,” said Jamieson. “They liked that they were helping out others with it. It also helped that they knew they were going to get a great breakfast out of it as well as get out of school for a little while.”

After the students and staff arrived, the firefighters served up heaping portions of eggs, sausage and pancakes with orange juice.  Several firefighters also talked with the school group about what they do.

Jackie Simcic-Becker, health care services coordinator for the Northeast Ohio MDA office, said events like this help the organization by raising funds and awareness.

“They certainly did a lot to help out,” she said. “We appreciate that they want to get involved like that. It’s nice that they’re already getting involved at their age.”

Students from Amanda Jamieson’s English class enjoy the breakfast made for them by city firefighters last Friday. The class won the breakfast after raising more than $2,000 for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. (West Life photo by Larry Bennet)

Simcic-Becker, who lives in North Olmsted and has children attending school in the district,  said she enjoyed the breakfast and seeing the station as well.

“They also are a big help to us throughout the year,” she said. “The car show is one of our most successful events and they help out at camps and other events throughout the year.”

After the morning feast was finished, the firefighters took the group on the tour. They started by showing off the vehicles in the squad bay, a fire engine and EMS ambulance squad. While there, junior Michael Woodworth, got an up close view of the squad that he’s like to duplicate in the future.

“I’d like to be a firefighter one day,” he said. “They do a lot of good things for people. It seems like there is a lot of interesting things going on.”

Woodworth said he also enjoyed being able to help out the MDA.

“We brought in a lot of money for the event,” he said. “When we talked about it, this seemed like something the class really wanted to do.”

Firefighter Carl Schanz, who runs the department’s car show every year, led the tour. He told the group about the different areas of the station as well as bantering with Michael and some of the others throughout the tour.

“It was a lot of fun,” he said. “You could tell the kids were really into this with all the money they collected. It was fun at the bank to see the people there look as we kept bringing out all the change rolls they had put together from the money they collected. It was kind of fun for me on this one to just help out.”

Capt. Jeff Hohenfeld, the Friday shift commander at Station 1, said he appreciates teachers and all they do.

“My youngest daughter is a teacher and I know how hard she works at it,” he said. “When they were in school, my daughters had a sixth grade teacher who had a big impact on them. You really can’t measure how much people like that help young people. The talk about firefighters being heroes but the teachers are real heroes to me with what they do for so many people.”