Heywood firefighters donate food hamper to local families

Watch Manager Colin Moran, Firefighter Emma McGregor, Father Daly, Kitty Holland, Firefighter Andy Doel and Firefighter Mike Wilkinson

Kind-hearted firefighters from Heywood have donated food to local families after winning a hamper for doing so well in a green competition against colleagues.

On Wednesday, 6 February, the crew joined other finalists of the Green Hose Awards at Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service's (GMFRS) headquarters - where they scooped a gold award along with a hamper of locally sourced delicacies.

But the team decided not to keep the goodies for themselves but to give them to local food banks after reading about supplies running low in the Heywood Advertiser last month.

Station Manager Ian Tracey said: "Last night Father Daly and Kitty Holland from Saint Vincent de Paul RC Church called in at the station where the hamper was handed over by Green Watch."

Parish priest Father Daly said: "We are very pleased with the kindness shown by the station and the hamper will definitely be put to great use."

Some of the hamper items have already been given to families and the remaining goods will soon be shared amongst others.

And to further help those in need of a little support Heywood Firefighter John Ogden - who played a vital role in co-ordinating the station's involvement in the awards - has taken things one step further by rounding up more food items from station staff for the charity.

Firefighters from Bolton Central, Bury, Chadderton, Marple, Mossley and Moss Side also made the final in the battle to be the greenest fire station - with Marple pipping others to the post to become the greenest of them all.

County Fire Officer Steve McGuirk said: "From our perspective as well as the moral imperative to be as green as possible there is a hard-nosed financial reason too.

"We have solar panels on the back of our headquarters and we're putting more solar panels on other buildings.

"People think 'where's this money coming from I thought we were hard up?', but there is hard evidence of how investments we've made over the last few years have taken hundreds and thousands of pounds out of our existing utilities budgets.

"This is about hard cash savings in the here and now.

"We've reduced our carbon footprint since 2009 by 16 per cent. If the rest of the economy had been on that same kind of target we would have all hit our various carbon reduction targets.

"That's an indication of just how far ahead of the field GMFRS has become."

Environmental Manager Sam Pickles said: "This is the first time any fire service has run a competition like this and it has come about through hard work from a lot people within GMFRS.

"We set about 60 challenges, things that every fire station could complete and they ranged from the straightforward like turning lights off to the truly challenging like getting a whole station to go Fairtrade.

"All seven finalists completed every single challenge, so it was extremely close and came down to the things which made them stand out as the greenest fire station."