Help in the Ahr Valley, building bridges in Slovenia, support at the G7 summit: THW Freising was involved in many large-scale operations. Now there were awards for it.
Freising
- The cooks of the Freising THW catering team had been chopping, cooking, cooking and serving from 8 a.m. on Wednesday so that the volunteers and their guests could expect a magnificent buffet at the honorary event. The setting in the stables in the district office was also very dignified.
The THW Freising volunteers work a lot of hours a year: “From 2020 to 2023 there were a total of more than 63,000 volunteer hours, which the local association’s balance shows over 167,000 hours of service for the same period,” informed local representative Michael Wüst. Many of these operations take place quietly, such as supporting the district office in accommodating refugees. Other operations receive a great deal of public attention, such as technical support for district fire departments in the event of major fires or operations following severe weather events. “And then there are the large-scale operations in which THW Freising emergency services are often significantly involved in dealing with the damage,” says Wüst. Volunteers in the stables have now been honored with special awards for such operations.
88 THW volunteers recognized
A total of 168 awards were presented for four regional missions to 88 volunteers from THW Freising (
see info box below
). More than 70 honorees in official uniform had gathered. Local representative Michael Wüst, deputy local representative Manfred Kürzinger and platoon leader Marco Eisenmann were able to welcome MdB Erich Irlstorfer, MdL Benno Zierer, the head of the THW Munich regional office, Anita Ptok, and the head of the volunteer department of the THW Bavarian regional association, Dominik Helms, as guests.
When asked why the awards were only being presented now, Wüst responded in his greeting: “On the one hand, Corona has made it impossible for us to organize an appropriate awards event. And on the other hand, it unfortunately took what felt like two eternities, actually until the end of 2023, until the federal flood relief medal was delivered to the local associations for use in 2021. And without this medal, such an honor somehow doesn’t make any sense.”
In their greetings, both MP Irlstorfer and MP Zierer emphasized the importance of volunteering for danger prevention and paid respect to the volunteer men and women from the city and the entire Freising district. Both emphasized in unison that this commitment deserves all support and should neither be taken for granted nor be viewed as normal to this extent. The greetings from Ptok and Helms also went in the same direction and highlighted the commitment of the Freising local association.
Deficits are not an issue for this evening
However, the issues that are currently particularly pressing at the THW in general and in the Freising local association, such as the inadequate financial resources of the THW or the lack of space in the accommodation, were left out that evening - the volunteers were the focus here.
ft/mic