Our Ask If you chose to donate, your donation will go to the ‘San Mateo County Firefighters Foundation.’ Because of your donation the Foundation will be able to fund issues like  Suicide Prevention through our Behavioral Health Program and Cancer Screening for our members.   We hope to attract small business and corporate sponsors and will be placing thier logo's on our vehicles using a wrap inorder to raise 'big money.'  Our Firefighters will be eternally greatfull for any help you provide.  If you are a business owner we would love to offer space on our Derby Cars for your company logo.  A donation of $500 will have your logo prominently displayed on one of our three vehicles and a donation of $1000 will get your branding on all three of our Cars. We will also be sure to give you maximum exposure on our social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) and guarantee that the maximum amount of people know you helped us at the ‘Good Guys Autumn Get Together’ on November 11th, <a href="https://www.good-guys.com/agtdemoderby."><a href="https://www.good-guys.com/agtdemoderby." target="_blank" class="" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://www.good-guys.com/agtdemoderby.</a> </a> Higgy Hesham, owner operator of the <a href="https://DecalDoctor.com"><a href="https://DecalDoctor.com" target="_blank" class="" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://DecalDoctor.com</a></a>, has already donated his graphic design time and will be wrapping our Derby Cars at cost. However, he has asked that if you do donate and want your logo on our vehicles that we have your logo by October 10th as an ‘eps file.’ We need it by the 10th so there is enough time to lay out the graphics prior to printing. To coordinate with us you can also simply write a note on ‘Go Fund Me’ with your contact information if you do chose to sponsor a vehicle. The Demolition Derby in Support of Hayward Firefighters L1909 Charitable Fund Hayward Firefighters, <a href="http://www.haywardfirefighters.org/items/DerbyPacket.pdf"><a href="http://www.haywardfirefighters.org/items/DerbyPacket.pdf" target="_blank" class="" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">http://www.haywardfirefighters.org/items/DerbyPacket.pdf</a></a>, have partnered with the Good Guys, <a href="https://www.good-guys.com/agtdemoderby"><a href="https://www.good-guys.com/agtdemoderby" target="_blank" class="" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://www.good-guys.com/agtdemoderby</a></a>, to put on their first ever Demolition Derby at the Alameda County Fairgrounds.  They had 20 cars for the event and San Mateo County Firefighters purchased 3 of them to start "Team L2400 Demo Derby."  The $1000 per entry fee went their Charitable Fund to support the benevolent acts within the City of Hayward.    San Mateo County Firefighters have never hosted a Charitable Golf tournament, but other firefighters in the area have.  Typically the firefighters do go out and solicit funds from the community to support the tournament by selling 'tee-sponsors'.  The idea came to us to sell space on our Derby Cars to support the ‘San Mateo County Firefighters Fund” similar to NASCAR.         <img class="not-resizable" src="https://d2g8igdw686xgo.cloudfront.net/24129636_1506211684.503_funddescription.jpg" alt="" width="100%" /> The San Mateo County Firefighters Foundation In talking to the other Executive Officers of our Charter the Derby seemed like a perfect opportunity to raise awareness of our ‘San Mateo County Firefighters Foundation’ that we started as a nonprofit last year. Typically, we fund our Foundation with $5000 out of our general fund and only spends those funds in our comminuty. However, this year our foundation has chosen to do something important for our members in two areas. Those areas are related cancer screening and behavioral health for our members. Behavioral Health According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 2014, 2015, and 2016 had 64, 68 and 69 line-of-duty firefighter fatalities. <a href="http://www.nfpa.org/news-and-research/fire-statistics-and-reports/fire-statistics/the-fire-service/fatalities-and-injuries/firefighter-deaths"><a href="http://www.nfpa.org/news-and-research/fire-statistics-and-reports/fire-statistics/the-fire-service/fatalities-and-injuries/firefighter-deaths" target="_blank" class="" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">http://www.nfpa.org/news-and-research/fire-statistics-and-reports/fire-statistics/the-fire-service/fatalities-and-injuries/firefighter-deaths</a></a>  According to the Firefighter Behavioral Health Alliance (FFBHA) 2014, 2015 and 2016 had 118, 138, and 135 firefighter suicides. The FFBHA estimates that they are only able to track 40% of firefighter suicides. What this means is that there have been more firefighter suicides every year in the past three years then there have been line-of-duty deaths. <a href="http://www.ffbha.org/"><a href="http://www.ffbha.org/" target="_blank" class="" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">http://www.ffbha.org/</a></a>   This year our Foundation has funded $1500 to allow us to join the ‘Fire Strong’ website that provides a portal for our members to access tools and help, however this will be an annual reoccuring cost and one that we need help with. <a href="https://www.firestrong.org/"><a href="https://www.firestrong.org/" target="_blank" class="" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://www.firestrong.org/</a></a>  While this site is a great start for our members, it is only a beginning and we hope to be able to use our Foundation to assist our members in becoming trained as ‘IAFF Peer Support Councilors.’ <iframe media_type="0" media_id="BC_7s5Mpu7E" class="youtube-replace" title="YouTube video player" style="margin-bottom:20px;width:560px;height:315px;" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/BC_7s5Mpu7E/?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="1"></iframe> Cancer Screening The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has completed a multi-year study of nearly 30,000 fire fighters to better understand the potential link between firefighting and cancer. <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/pgms/worknotify/pdfs/ff-cancer-factsheet-final.pdf"><a href="https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/pgms/worknotify/pdfs/ff-cancer-factsheet-final.pdf" target="_blank" class="" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/pgms/worknotify/pdfs/ff-cancer-factsheet-final.pdf</a></a>   What was found was the firefighters studied showed higher rates of certain types of cancer than the general U.S. population. Based on U.S. cancer rates. Fire fighters in the study had a greater number of cancer diagnoses and cancer-related deaths; mostly in digestive, oral, respiratory, and urinary cancers. There were about twice as many fire fighters with malignant mesothelioma, a rare type of cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. Exposure to asbestos while firefighting is the most likely explanation for this. There were more cases of certain cancers among younger fire fighters. For example, fire fighters in the study who were under 65 years of age had more bladder and prostate cancers than expected. When comparing fire fighters in our study to each other: the chance of lung cancer diagnosis or death increased with amount of time spent at fires; and, the chance of leukemia death increased with the number of fire runs. Because of our increased potential of cancer, we have been looking for a cost-effective manner to screen our members. We believe we have found one with <a href="http://www.cancerdogs.ca/"><a href="http://www.cancerdogs.ca/" target="_blank" class="" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">http://www.cancerdogs.ca/</a></a> . Cancer-Dogs is a cancer screening service that uses specially trained dogs to detect the odor of all types of cancer present in a person’s exhaled breath. They developed an inexpensive and non-invasive breath sample kit that collects breath odor with a simple surgical mask that is worn for 10 minutes. Back at their facility, the breath samples are processed, placed into trays and loaded into our custom designed sniffing station where 4 dogs will systematically search, sniffing each sample multiple times. The kits are $20 US per person, plus return shipping. Our foundation has funded the purchase of 100 cancer screening kits. Some of our employers are funding the use of these kits for our members. However, not all Departments are as progressive as others and we have over 500 members and our Foundation cannot cover all of our members being screened once let alone on an annual basis. <iframe media_type="0" media_id="cXOfpBwJMRU" class="youtube-replace" title="YouTube video player" style="margin-bottom:20px;width:560px;height:315px;" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/cXOfpBwJMRU/?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="1"></iframe>

Anonymous

Mark Laine

Josh Massie

Annonymous Donor

Art & Diane Roberts

Bryson Drake

Gordon Coe

mike sweeney

Carol Parker

Academy 28  Recruits

John Giraudo

Jeff Higgins

Chris Pimentel

Tony  Eggimann 

Amanda Bittaker

Kevin Jeffery

Marc Berg

Milagros Cid

Help your Local 2400 Firefighters

Help your Local 2400 Firefighters

Still $3,110 to go. Help us build momentum.