was founded with the goal of providing grants to public safety students in non-traditional schools to assist with the financial constraints contained therein. We noticed a sharp downward trend a few years ago involving a decrease in trained personnel in the field of public safety and several ancillary fields in certified programs. We intend to reverse this trend by offering financial assistance th
at heretofore has been unavailable to these individuals. We will have several qualifiers for each recipient and will vote to release funding on a case by case basis as a board. The name of our foundation states it all. Fidem is Latin for faith. These will be the only two requirements of our students, time and faith. The initial goals for our foundation is to provide grants to students and eventually equipment to non-traditional schools specializing in public safety training. We intend to secure corporate funding through several means involving fundraising events and presentations to corporations interested in helping us achieve our goal of raising the census of public servants in the field. The field of law enforcement has witnessed a drop in willing people to join their forces for a myriad of reasons, the most blatantly apparent being societal views about the field itself and the people we rely on to help us when we are threatened with bodily harm. These men and women place their lives on the line for each of us daily with disregard for their own safety at times. Police departments and Sheriff offices across the southeast are suffering the same shortage all public safety does. Through our programs and assistance, we will be able to help alleviate some of the deficiency. Fire departments traditionally have conducted their own rookie schools for new recruits, but have recently found themselves suffering shortages resulting in hastily arranged training to fill the empty slots in their departments. As a result, many local departments are offering “fast track” programs. This means that if you hold certifications as a firefighter, EMT, and Hazardous Materials Operations level, you are hired immediately. This landscape has created another issue. If you haven’t worked as a firefighter previously, and do not hold these certifications, how do you get them? A few schools have begun offering rookie schools for the general public to help these people enter into the field, but the person taking the class must pay the fees themselves. Again, with our programs, we alleviate the cost for these students with grants and scholarships to pay for their tuition. In the years before national accreditation was required for all paramedic programs in the United States, there were a plethora of schools available to teach paramedicine to those individuals looking to serve their fellow man. In Georgia alone, there were over 70 schools operating prior to accreditation rules requiring full accreditation for their courses. That number dropped to less than 20 virtually overnight. A rudimentary understanding of supply and demand will show that this drop is untenable to accommodate the changes in population and demand for public servants. We have begun to see these untoward effects firsthand in the field. The Bureau of Labor Statistics noted that due to population increase and the accompaniment of accreditation shortage of schools providing EMS training, we will suffer a loss of substantial proportions in the coming years. This is the ultimate impetus for us to try to change the above detrimental movement and increase the numbers of licensed paramedics in the field. We fear what this trend could mean and we intend to remove one of the major stumbling blocks for those students wishing to join a public safety educational program. The stumbling block we will remove is tuition costs. Most accredited paramedic programs most assuredly come with a cost. The average cost for EMT training at the advanced level is anywhere from $4000.00 to $12,000.00. The average cost for a Paramedic program is $5000.00 to $18,000.00. The cost varies wildly due to the fact that most schools specializing in the training aforementioned are privately owned, non-traditional schools that are constrained by the cost to offer the course to those interested. Students that attend a traditional four year college or a traditional Title 4 technical school are eligible for state grants and state scholarships. Due to the fact that most schools specializing in EMS training specifically, are ineligible to receive this funding for their students. Our foundation is there to fill that void by offering scholarships to these students that often fall by the wayside. We understand the mountain in front of us, but our resolve is strong and our vision focused on overcoming the obstacles that have been placed on students that fall into the category of ineligible for the traditional financial assistance offered elsewhere. Public safety is definitely a “calling” and we hear that call loud and clear. We will provide an option for those students that have been ignored financially for too long. We thank you for your support and ask that each of you help us accomplish this goal, from student to donator, we will achieve this goal together.
