View Previous Issues November 13, 2020 Noteworthy News THANK YOU!   Thank you to Lowe's Home Improvement- Avon for their generous donation to our department. We are very appreciative of their support towards our Smoke Detector Program. The water and Gatorade will come in handy during trainings and fire emergencies. The donation of a grill for use at our Headquarters is also very much appreciated. We are so thankful to have such great support from the businesses in our community. Run Report     2019 Run Total = 5832 2018 Run Total = 5087 Sponsor Spotlight   Chief Chat TRAINING OF NEW RECRUITS   As you probably know, Washington Township/Avon Fire Department recently began a recruit school for a new class of firefighters.  This class is the first time that WTAFD has conducted our own recruit school, as we utilized outside agencies when we had new recruits in the past.   We are excited that we have been able to conduct these classes at our new training facility located at 499 South Avon Avenue.  The buildings are being used for a classroom for students, as well as conducting physical fitness training each morning.  Our recruits just finished the EMS portion of the training, with 4 of our new recruits passing the State practical exam last weekend.  They will be scheduling their written exam soon.  Our other recruits are already certified as Paramedics or EMTs, so they were not required to be tested.    This week they have been functioning on our ambulances in a training role, as well as functioning as observers at the Emergency Room at Hendricks Regional Health in Brownsburg and Danville.  Thanks to Chief Ted Allen, Chief Jon Joseph, Lieutenant Joe East and Lieutenant Jerry Bessler for instructing our recruits and thanks to our crews that assisted with the practical portions of their training.   Chief Joseph has been the lead instructor during the EMS portion, and Chief Jason Porter will be leading the fire training portion of the recruit class.  Chief John Shafer and Firefighter/Paramedic Steve Preston will be instructing the recruits next week as they complete their week long Hazardous Materials training.   During their daily physical fitness training, Firefighter/Paramedic Doug Phillips has been leading the recruits with the assistance of many of our Peer Fitness Trainers and other crew members.  As you can see from the large number of assisting instructors, this recruit process is a group effort, and would not be successful without the assistance of our many dedicated personnel.  Thanks to everyone assisting for your dedication to the department and the new members that we are training! Training Tidbit C-Shift 143’s crew spent time working with our new recruits on ALS assist techniques. Crew Corner Congratulations to Jerome Bessler for celebrating 20 years of service at our department. He was presented with a certificate from Chief Dan Smith. We thank him for his dedication to our community. Happy Veteran's Day! C Shift L141 was part of the Veteran’s Day celebration that Texas Roadhouse put on this week. Veterans could drive through and receive a free meal voucher as a thank you for their service!   We were proud to help honor all those who have served. C Shift 143 hosted a "socially distanced" tour of Station 143 this week. Our township has now implemented new COVID-19 procedures and has postponed all tours until further notice.   If you are interested in scheduling a tour, please stay tuned to our website. We will place our online scheduling tool back online when tours can resume.  Safety Spot Kids In The Kitchen Guide Send A Sparky E-Card Are you up for a challenge? Complete our Smoke Detector Facts Lesson below.  Click through the slides, watch the videos, and be sure to submit your answers using the form within the lesson.  If you are a student, we will send you a completion certificate if you answer all of the questions correctly. Please be sure to provide a working e-mail address so we can send you your certificate.   If you are a teacher, we will send your class a short video message from a crew member thanking them for completing the lesson with you. We love knowing your students are learning about fire safety from you.   If you are a parent, we'd love to have any pictures or videos of your family checking your detectors, drawing an escape plan, or actually practicing your escape plan. You can submit some using the form located within the lesson or email them to Karen Utley using the email address: kutley@avonfd.org.   You can also submit your photos/videos in a message to our Facebook page. We can't wait to see your submissions.   For best experience, please use Google Chrome as your browser. Use the button below for the full version. Click For Full Screen Version