It was another successful year for the firefighters roof top camp out, raising over $40,000 for local charities.
Scott Germain, chair of the Fort McMurray Firefighters Charities Association, said they are proud of their results.
“We did quite amazing. When we had to reschedule the camp-out, we had to schedule it for 25 hours less. So we were concerned we wouldn’t make as much money.”
The camp-out is usually 100 hours but this year it was only 75 hours.
The five members climbed down from the roof of Tim Hortons in Eagle Ridge on Saturday and Germain said the weather was the biggest difference.
“We always scheduled it beginning of April because we felt we needed that, kind of sympathy factor. That people would look up at us and be like ‘It sucks those guys are up there in the snow, lets give them some money’,” said Germain.
“Now that we did it a month later and it was the heat we were dealing with, we found it was much better received we had more members of the public, more families coming out.”
Germain added that having it over May 3rd, the wildfire anniversary was a big factor as well.
“I think we are going to stick with it in this time frame,” said Germain. “We had lots of people come by and say it was nice that we were up there on May 3rd… it gives people a chance to come visit the firefighters and ask us questions.”
All of the funds from the roof top camp-out will be donated to Waypoints, the Fort McMurray SPCA, the Fort McMurray Boys and Girls Club, Centre of Hope and the Wood Buffalo Food Bank.
The Fort McMurray Firefighters Charities Association is still planning their calendar that will be on sale later this year.
