Schuylkill’s emergency chiefs plan to train 300 first responders at the county’s new educational facility.
County officials did not announce a completion date, but the project will serve all 95 fire departments, EMS workers and law enforcement.
Dave Sattizahn said the expansion allows first responders to learn through hands-on experiences. The current center offers two buildings, which can house 20 students at maximum. He’s the president of the Schuylkill County Volunteer Firefighters’ Association.
“It’s going to be able to allow us to train more people at a bigger facility and be able to interact. A lot of times we do a lot of training that’s live training in the classroom, but then we can’t take it outside…We’ll be able to go outside and do variable scenarios,” said Sattizahn.
Sattizahn wanted the county to alleviate the statewide decline in volunteer emergency responders. He teamed up with Frank Zangari, the county’s fire chiefs’ association president, to use local ARPA funding.
American Rescue Plan Act funding came out of the pandemic. Counties and municipalities can spend that money on public projects, according to the state’s Department of Community and Economic Development.
“This has been a long process… It was almost two and a half years ago when Frank [Zangari] and I approached our county commissioners and tried to do something with the ARPA funds,” said Sattizahn. “And not give it out to each individual fire company, but try to hold it back to try and make a plan that would allow us this facility.”
Senator Bob Casey announced on Tuesday he secured two million dollars in federal funds for the project.
“This is how it should work. When you have a demonstrated need, that the community comes to their legislators and says, ‘We need help. We need funding.' We should make every effort possible to deliver that funding. And in this case, we did,” said Casey. “God bless the work of those who do this courageous, selfless service every day.”
Casey hopes the center entices a new generation of volunteers to join rural emergency services. However, he said this is only part of a series of improvements.
“If you know that you will be the subject of investment and attention and good training, I think you’re more likely to become a volunteer,” said Casey. “We’ve got to do a lot of other things though to make sure that volunteers have the incentives. We got to be, I think, creative about providing other incentives for folks to do this work.”
He did not elaborate on what those incentives might be.
The project will cost around five million dollars. Officials did not announce a timeline or the facility’s new equipment.
