Donations for disabled child who loves fire trucks

[mamastirls25]

Hi I am the mom of a 3 yr old little boy who has a congenital birth defect called Dandy Walker Malformation which means that he has a smaller cerebellum and excess fluid in his brain which results in low muscle tone and possible shunting from hydrocephalus there is No Cure for this.He is also autistic so he is infatuated with the lights and sirens Ethan loves anything firefighter related his dad is a EMT/Firefighter. We are looking for donations of anything firefighter/EMS related to help make Ethan a fire/ems theme room and a quilt made out of some of the stuff that we receive. Ethan would love to recieve anything of this nature in the mail please feel free to email me at mstirling@twcny.rr.com and put fire stuff in the subject line if you want to help us
Thank you so much
Michelle Stirling

[mamastirls25]

Is it normal not to get responses ??? I see that lots of people are reading the post and it means so much to me that people are viewing my post and thinking of our little boy
Michelle and Scott Stirling

[Firetacoma1]

My guess is that most people don't have anything to donate. I don't think most people have stuff that isn't department issued... and it's illeagal to give away stuff the department owns.

What type of stuff were you thinking about?

[mamastirls25]

patches or a t shirt or something to decorate his room and make a quilt. I have gotten alot of response so far from dept's I didn;t think that it was illegal to send that bunkers or helmets i could see but not patches or a hat or something with the logl

[CaptOldTimer]

Most departments now have a policy that it doesn't give away patches, ball caps, shirts or anything that has the department's logo on. This is because there are folks our there that would get these items and wear them and falsely impersonate a firefighter from that department. Plus since 9-11, a lot of departments have taken a closer look at giving away items that could be falling into the wrong hands. Even newer procedures, as keeping a member on the truck when the company goes into the store for food or out on an inspection trip. Unless the truck can be secured, it isn’t left alone by its self.

This is probably why you aren’t getting many responses.


:D

[mamastirls25]

I have gotten responses to my email just not on here it is pretty sad that the departments have to feel that way just because of a terrorist it makes me sad to see the world we live in and that a little boy's dream of having a fire room and patches is compromised because of terrorists.

[CAPPYY]

God bless your entire family.

I would love to send patches and stuff but my hands are tied due to the world we now live in. With the internet there is no way of knowing you are who you say you are. We are all in the business of protecting the public and think of how bad we would feel if something bad happened out there and one of our patches or hats was used to hurt the public we protect.

But I can offer your boy my best wishes and prayers and now he has them.

[EFD840]

mamastirls25, just a simpler reason why you might not get too many responses. We're a smalltown FD in the middle of Alabama. We don't even have a dress uniform and yet we get at least one e-mail a day asking for a patch. I can't imagine the volume of requests some departments receive.

We get these requests from all over the world and have all kinds of stories attached. They still come in despite the clear and unambiguious statement on our 'contact us' web page that says we will not respond to requests for patches. Many times the stories are made up and the patch, if sent, is destined for e-bay. At least in my case, I've seen so many requests I just dismiss them out of hand.

I have honored one request for a patch. The message sender stated he was from a particular FDNY house - it so happened that a member of that house is a frequent poster on these forums so I dropped him a PM to see if the guy was legit. The forum member vouched for the sender, so I sent a patch.

[ktb9780]

All true statements from everyone, especially from the guy about the "legitimacy" of your claim. As a grandfather with a "special needs" baby, such as yours, I can sympathize with your plight. If I might be of some help though... if I were you I would contact a local newspaper and see if they would run a "human interest" story on your story. The story, if run, will be picked up by the wire services around the country and being able to link to that story, with a photo etc., would add some legitimacy to your claim. That would probably open a floodgate of support for you.