FASNY LAUNCHES FIRST EVER “SECTIONAL CHALLENGE” AS PART OF RECRUITNY INITIATIVE

As part of its upcoming RecruitNY campaign, the Firemen’s Association of the State of New York (FASNY) has launched a first-of-its kind “Sectional Challenge,” which tracks fire department recruitment efforts throughout the state. The new, online competition measures participation by region and has already spurred some friendly competition among fire departments hosting RecruitNY events. The overall goal of the “Challenge” is to drive interest in RecruitNY and ultimately attract new members to join the volunteer fire service, which has seen numbers decline in recent years.

“After seeing the tremendous participation we had the past three years and the friendly rivalry that developed among different regions throughout the state, we decided to create this new official challenge,” said FASNY President James Burns. “Although there is no prize except for bragging rights, everybody wins if we boost the number of volunteer firefighters in our state.”

Building on the record breaking number of fire departments that participated in RecruitNY last year, and noticing that there was friendly competition among the various regions across the State, ABC and FASNY decided to officially launch the challenge. The participation level is based on the percentage of fire departments that sign up to participate from a given region. The hope is that as more departments hear about the challenge, they will sign up to host RecruitNY events and ultimately boost the ranks among volunteer firefighters statewide.

Members of the public as well as firefighters can track progress here: http://www.recruitny.org/challenge.php