By Shelby Brooks
The first weekend of sunny weather in spring brought thousands of people out to the Officer CFA Open Day on Saturday 5 November.
Officer firefighter Sanjay Robson said the event was a great success with about 2000 people attending during the day.
“It was definitely more than we were expecting,” he said.
About 20 CFA volunteers helped on the day, along with family members and partners of brigade members.
The event featured face painting, a jumping castle, popcorn, fairy floss and a barbecue.
It’s thought the brigade raised about $1300 in funds.
Sanjay said the day would not have been possible without the strength and perseverance of some of their members.
“The previous Sunday some of our volunteers were deployed to Echuca to help with the flooding, working 12-14 hours days of physical labour,” Sanjay explained.
“Thursday they came home, they had one day off and then there was a house fire on Cardinia Road around 3am until 8am Saturday morning.”
He said those involved all came back to the station to help set up for the open day at 10am.
“A lot of us were operating no sleep for the whole day,” he said.
“We pressed on and were really proud of everyone giving 110 per cent effort to bring smiles to the faces of the community, and there were a lot of smiles.”
Sanjay said the main purpose of the event was to increase the brigade’s community engagement.
“We wanted to let people know we are here, open and friendly and to showcase what we do and who we are,” Sanjay said.
Officer CFA is always looking for recruits for firefighting and non-firefighting volunteer opportunities.
Contact CFAOff@outlook.com for more information.
