04/22/2026
Good afternoon Leslie community.
With the announcement of the Leslie Fire Association’s upcoming carwash, we wanted to post about how the LFA uses donated funds.
The Leslie Fire Association is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that was formed with the sole purpose of improving the safety of our community.
The LFA is organized to accomplish our mission by receiving and allocating donated funds towards things like continuing emergency service training, public education, improving department application rates and improving the response capability of the Leslie Fire Department. The Leslie Fire Department strives to improve constantly, but is restricted by a budget that has not kept up with the rising costs to operate. With this in mind, the Executive Board of the LFA stands by the opinion that the budget of the Leslie Fire Department is responsible for maintaining the level of service, but the Leslie Fire Association can have a positive impact on IMPROVING the level of service.
-Continuing emergency service training: The Leslie Fire Department allocates $5,000 for an annual training budget. Opportunities for continued training for certified firefighters is abundant around the state, but most, if not all of the department’s training budget is allocated for sending department applicants to the required entry-level training to be a certified firefighter each year. Continued professional training for certified firefighters is critical in ensuring that the Fire Department continues to operate using up to date techniques and science based tactics when mitigating emergencies.
-Public Education and outreach: A reactive fire department only operates when someone activates 911. An effective fire department strives to help prevent and mitigate emergencies before they happen through public education and outreach. The Leslie Fire Department currently provides presentations to students of Leslie Public Schools during fire prevention week in early October. Members of the Leslie Fire Department volunteer their time to continue the mission of providing public education to prevent and mitigate emergencies, but no department funding can be provided for equipment to use during the presentations. Allocating Association funds to public education would increase the opportunities for public education events and increase their effectiveness.
-Improving department application rates: Across the country, staffing levels for emergency services are dropping. A decrease in the number of individuals interested in serving their community is hurting public safety. Over the years, Leslie firefighters have attempted to turn the tide with a yearly scholarship open to Leslie Public School students. The scholarship is aimed towards students nearing the end of their high school careers who are interested in continuing their education in a field relating to emergency services or a medical field. As these students graduate high school, we hope to spark an interest toward applying with the Leslie Fire Department to serve their local community. The Leslie Fire Association intends to continue, and potentially grow this scholarship opportunity with the support of fellow community members like you.
-Improving the response capability: The Leslie Fire Department is equipped to handle local emergencies in and around our community. Fire departments form mutual aid agreements to further strengthen local response capabilities. This is expected and mutually beneficial, especially in our area. As emergencies grow in size and complexity departments use these mutual aid agreements and specialized teams to address these more complex and larger scale emergencies. However, the Leslie Fire Department is falling behind in comparison to neighboring departments in our response capabilities. The department’s budget is allocated to maintain the level of service that the department provides, but the costs of maintaining aging and failing equipment leaves very little room for growth. Donated association funds could be used to assist in the acquisition of tools, equipment and training needed to improve the level of service the department provides, improving the level of safety in the community.
