Lancaster’s firefighters have outdone themselves. Members of Lancaster Firefighters IAFF Local 291 raised a record $28,436 for the Muscular Dystrophy Association during this year’s Fill the Boot campaign, the most the local union has ever collected through the annual effort, according to a community announcement reported by the Lancaster Eagle-Gazette.
Firefighters collected the money over two days, Oct. 9 and 10, holding boots out to drivers and passersby around Lancaster. The record total pushes Local 291’s giving since 2011 to $342,500 for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, the announcement said.
“We are incredibly proud of our Local for stepping up once again to support MDA, and we are extremely proud of and grateful to the community of Lancaster,” Lt. Brian Mcqueary of Local 291 said in the announcement, as reported by the Lancaster Eagle-Gazette. “We could not raise these funds year after year without the community’s support.”
Fill the Boot is a long-running partnership between the International Association of Fire Fighters and the Muscular Dystrophy Association. The campaign has raised more than $700 million nationwide since 1954, making firefighters one of the association’s most enduring sources of support.
Money raised through the campaign supports research, care and advocacy for people living with muscular dystrophy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and related neuromuscular diseases, according to the announcement. The funds also support educational resources and durable medical equipment for families facing those conditions.
In Ohio, the giving has a local face: campaign money helps support care through seven clinics in the state and MDA Summer Camp at Recreation Unlimited in Ashley, where children with neuromuscular diseases spend a week at camp and firefighters often volunteer as counselors, the announcement said.
Local 291’s firefighters will be back on Lancaster’s streets with their boots next fall, looking to top a record that stood for only as long as it took this community to beat it. Anyone who missed the crew in October can still give to the campaign online at mda.org/ftb.