Many times, we are asked “Why does a firefighter counseling team need a fire truck?” Quite frankly, that is certainly a legitimate question so I’ll share our story with you.
In December, 2007, our Team, then known as the Charleston Firefighter Support Team was in the early days of our mission and we decided to appear in the Charleston Christmas Parade. Building trust with our firefighters was the most important task at the time as providing counseling services to them was relatively new. We were fortunate to find a friend in Ray Bennett, a well-known fire buff who was working at the Fire Museum and agreed to bring his old American LaFrance out to ride us in the parade. What a beautiful Sunday afternoon it was as we proudly rode the old ALF down King Street to the delight of all of us and the hundreds of adults and children lining both sides of the street. As we traveled the parade route, Amanda Custer, one of our Team clinician turned to me and said “We need to get ourselves a fire truck”. Well, at our Team meeting the next morning, we discussed her thoughts. We decided that if we were to expect our firefighters and their families to trust us to help them during their troubled times, getting to know them during the pleasant times in their life would help us gain that much needed trust. We thought it was appropriate to create some of those special times so, we set out in search of an old truck to restore, to raise as an example of happiness, hope and the future. That venture grew to presently include three trucks, all a part of the community outreach program of our Team.
We roll these old trucks in parades, birthday parties, weddings, family reunions and other events in our community, in support of our firefighters, EMS personnel, law enforcement brothers and sisters and their families. We also provide the honor of their last ride to our deceased firefighters by transporting them to their final resting place.
We also provide our trucks for appearance as the birthday parties for the children of private citizens and accept donations for that service to maintain the trucks and buy fuel for them. These trucks were either purchased personally by our Team members or were donated to us by the Santee Circle Rural Fire Department (“Road Runner”) and the Old Fort Fire Department (“Big John”).
We will let you decide if we have accomplished our goal of creating some happy times and have built the trust we were seeking. Here are a few photos taken over the last ten years. We look forward to continuing to seeing you all as we believe “Our Parade Never Ends”. 
