April is a month of renewal as we move from spring to summer. Living in SoCal this is also the time when we witness the kick-off to summer which is when we see everything dry out and the fuel piles up for fires. We all know that vigilance moving into fire season in our area pays off tenfold. After witnessing the terrible disasters in Pacific Palisades & Altadena (just to name a couple) far too many folks were impacted with the worst nightmare.
A great community service opportunity is to contact your local fire department and city halls and see if they can help identify properties of elderly or disabled that need abatement and the resident is either not in the physical condition to handle their own abatement or afford to pay to have it done. Making a property fire safe can make a huge difference. Once identified, teams can contact the property owners and offer to assist in abating the property going into fire season so that there is at least a 10’ clearance of brush and flammables around the structure.
Many times those that are compromised either physically or financially don’t know who to turn to for help.
Perhaps when working on abatements your club can set up teams with a competition to see which team can fill up the greatest amount of trash bags on a project…… and the losing team ….has to buy lunch for the winning team. Like everything else in Rotary working shoulder to shoulder is always both fun and productive.
Contacting local fire departments and city government to see what your club can do to lower the fire risk in your community can and will make a huge difference.
Chuck Weisbart (Cheeze)
Proudly- an Idyllwild Rotarian!
D5330 Community Service Chair
760 578 3592
P.O.Box 278, Idyllwild CA 92549