For many of its members, volunteering for the Princeton Junction Fire Company means running out of the door amid holiday and family celebrations.
While they aren’t paid for their time, the members of the fire company make sure they are available to respond to calls on any day, despite its designation. They also donate their time to coming to the company’s eight-year-old firehouse to perform maintenance and other behind-the-scenes work required to ensure they are prepared.
In return for their donations of time and energy, they are asking residents and commercial businesses to donate some money toward the fire company’s financial stability, which in turn, keeps taxes lower than they could be for their neighbors.
“We are all residents and taxpayers, and we pride ourselves on saving additional money by staying volunteer,” said Captain Anthony Mangone.
Mangone says that the fire company’s budget has been surviving on a bare bones budget but that the recent drop-off in donations is providing a severe difficulty for the volunteers to sustain the services they provide at no cost to the township’s residents.
Some residents have criticized the fire company, saying that the fire company spends money for what they allege are unnecessary modifications to new fire trucks and equipment. Actually, Mangone points to the “no frills” trucks the fire company does have, but also to the job the volunteers have done with what they can afford.
“We’re not going to continue to survive on what we’re getting,” Mangone said. “We want to keep it volunteer as long as we can.”
The members of the fire company don’t want to see the successful volunteer company they, and their ancestors, have built for their hometown struggle because of the lack of funding. “You don’t want to see it fail.”
Mangone, who was born and raised in West Windsor, follows his father, who was a firefighter, and now sees his son following in his footsteps. But familial ties are not uncommon in the Princeton Junction Fire Company.
Gay Huber, the fire company’s secretary and chair of the fundraising committee and resident of the township, is another. When she is not working as the township clerk in the municipal building, she is volunteering her time at the fire company, where her husband, Dennis, serves as chief, and where her three daughters and son-in-law also volunteer. Her great-grandfather was a charter member of the Princeton Junction Fire Company when it was formed in 1926.
In fact, many of the volunteers with the fire company are family members, from father-son combinations to families like Huber’s, with multiple members involved. And often, this means that multiple members of the family are leaving the dinner table to respond to calls within their own community.
“It’s usually when I bring the turkey out of the oven,” Huber says, laughing about leaving the dinner table during holidays like Thanksgiving.
“You’ve got company at your own birthday party, and you’re leaving,” adds Mangone, who has had many similar experiences.
But it is the spirit — or calling, as they would say — that keeps them involved. And even with so many individual familial connections, the organization as a whole is like one big family.
But the benefits of having volunteer organizations covering fire services to the township’s residents — and businesses — is significant, says Mangone. Not only does it save money, but the fire company is known for the training and professionalism of its members, who continually train to keep up with the evolving technologies used in their equipment.
And the new state of the art building provides a boon to the fire company. The fire company spent 26 years looking at seven different locations for a new location to move — all of which were shot down because residents did not want a fire company near their homes — so they could relocate to a more convenient location with enough space to accommodate their equipment and needs. They finally entered into a deal with the township that resulted in the construction of the new building eight years ago.
And contrary to some residents’ allegations, the former firehouse on Alexander Road was not given to the township with the West Windsor Arts Council as the target, said Mangone. Rather, the move came eight years ago because of the need.
At the time, the fire company entered into an agreement with the township that had the township provide the funds to construct the building in turn for the donation of the former firehouse building. The volunteers also had to provide a half a million dollars of its own and take care of the construction management costs.
Mangone said the firehouse was the only new fire department building within the county to be completed without dipping into the 5 percent contingency fund set aside for the project.
It was a few years later that the idea came about for the West Windsor Arts Council’s occupation of the building. “It wasn’t even a thought at all at the time we donated the building,” he said.
And the hazmat equipment stored in the Arts Council building doesn’t even belong to the Princeton Junction Fire Company, as some have alleged. It belongs to the emergency services crew, which stores the hazmat and other mass casualty equipment there.
Since occupying its new building, the Princeton Junction Fire Company has seen a decrease in response times to residents and buildings because of the more accessible location, Mangone said. Meanwhile, the volunteers have taken care of the landscaping for the building and later saw a need to transform the exercise room into a bunk area for their members — endeavors taken on without township funding. “We’re still getting multiple pieces of equipment out to calls in very little response time,” Mangone said.
Still, the company is facing a “bare, bare bones” budget and needs the community’s help. “We’ve downsized our fleet, and we’re trying to fund equipment,” he said.
In 2010, the fire company saw donations drop by $20,000, which is significant. In addition to funding equipment needs, “we do a lot of maintenance on the building here,” Mangone said. In addition, “our operating expenses are far higher than they ever were before.”
Mangone said Princeton Junction Fire Company members are hoping that residents, as well as some of the businesses, especially along the Route 1 corridor, will donate to the fire company this year. “If they realized that we have the largest stretch of Route 1 in the county,” the donations might increase.
Without the volunteer firefighters, the costs to taxpayers to fund fire services they cover would be in the millions, he said. “We buy everything ourselves.” And nothing is spent on the actual volunteers, he added.
One move the fire company is targeting is subsidizing a special services unit. In order to do so, the volunteers will have to get rid of one of two chief vehicles and use the money they would have been spending on maintenance and replacement of the vehicle to begin a special services unit.
In every other department, the minimum number of vehicles is two, but “we’re going to try to do it with one,” he said. The special services unit will serve to bring supplies to calls, including hydration and mist fans to those responding on calls. “We’re doing it very modestly,” he said. “We’re not going to replace a unit that should be replaced.”
And going to the township for more donations is not a possibility. “They are taxed just as well as we are,” he said.
Now, the volunteers are relying on the residents and businesses to help sustain the fire company. “We donate our own time to try to fundraise,” he said. “We do everything we possibly can.”
Fund drive information will be sent out to residents and businesses this month through the mail. For more information, log on to www.pjfd.com.
