A truck full of donations to the fire service on its way to Ukraine
Created: 07/03/2022, 17:08
By: Laura Forster
Donations from 16 fire brigades from the district brought Dirk Schiecke (6th from right), first commander of the Feldafing fire brigade, his comrades and friends to a camp in Mammendorf on Saturday.
From there, the discarded material is to be taken to Kyiv.
I hope that unskilled men can use the donations to help the local fire brigades.
Dirk Schiecke, First Commander of the Feldafing Fire Department © Andrea Jaksch
Within around three days, Feldafing's fire brigade commander, Dirk Schiecke, pulled out all the stops and organized a truckload of donations in kind from the district's fire brigades to be taken to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.
Feldafing – The idea of sending discarded fire brigade equipment to the Ukraine came to Dirk Schiecke, first commander of the Feldafing fire brigade, on Wednesday evening when he saw the terrible pictures from the war zone (we reported).
"I just decided that," says Schiecke in an interview with Starnberger Merkur.
"The volunteer fire brigades, who are on duty every day despite these terrible circumstances, may soon reach their limits."
That same evening, Schiecke informed Michael Polednik, the chairman of the district fire brigade association, about his project – and he was enthusiastic.
"He then immediately sent an e-mail to all fire departments in the district." The feedback was enormous.
Schiecke and his team picked up the first donations from the Pöcking and Maising fire brigades on Thursday.
"Little by little, more and more comrades brought discarded fire-fighting material." A total of 16 fire brigades took part in the relief operation.
In addition to Feldafing, Pöcking and Maising, the fire departments of Machtlfing, Höhenrain, Tutzing, Unterbrunn, Allmannshausen, Krailling, Stockdorf, Traubing, Erling-Andechs, Söcking, Walchstadt, Hadorf and the Oberpfaffenhofen works fire department also donated.
The fire brigades in the district collected 211 coats, 209 pants and 123 helmets, among other things
"Everyone tried to help.
The commitment was there.
Larger fire brigades such as Starnberg, Herrsching and Gauting are missing from the list because they have only recently cleaned up their camps.
But that doesn't mean that they didn't want to be part of the fundraiser," emphasizes Schiecke.
The fire brigades in the district collected 211 coats, 209 trousers and 123 helmets.
There were also 73 safety belts, 35 working lines, a scaling ladder, various hoses, 60 slings, three emergency backpacks, an emergency power generator, three distributors and even a hydraulic rescue kit.
"Technical equipment like this usually costs a fortune," says the commander.
Truck brings donations to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv
Schiecke had not expected the amount of donations to be so large.
"Of course I hoped that many would participate," he says.
"Most of the fire brigades in the district always have something in the basement that can be removed." Without the support and consent of the mayors, however, the relief operation would not have been possible, and Schiecke knows that too.
"Bernhard Sontheim was immediately enthusiastic," he says of the mayor of Feldafinger.
For the commander, the priority was to get the donations to Ukraine as quickly as possible.
"It was important to me that everything went unbureaucratically and promptly." Two and a half days after his idea, on Saturday afternoon, the fire brigade brought the donations to a warehouse in Mammendorf.
From there, a truck is to bring the fire-fighting equipment directly to Kyiv.
Dirk Schiecke: "I hope that unskilled men will be able to help the fire brigades on site with the donations."
