Andover is such a charming town, with its picturesque views and friendly residents. It is no wonder why, after living here years ago, my husband Andrew and I decided to move back after living away for a bit (Honestly, we had a countdown until we would return!).  Part of the draw of moving back is our town’s volunteer fire department family. Andrew is a volunteer firefighter/EMT for Andover, while I serve as Vice-President on our Emergency Services Auxiliary…and we love it! While you may be familiar with our fire and EMS departments, as well as our auxiliary, are you familiar with our stations?
The stations are the home of our operations, housing our volunteers’ equipment, gear and all of the various types of apparatus used to respond to any sort of emergency that should arise in town. We also use our stations for trainings, meetings, food preparation, and other services for the community. Our meeting room is used weekly by other organizations in town as well. As you can imagine, our station has become worn over the years with all of the ‘love’ and traffic it gets! Even with constant care and cleaning, time and weather have taken their toll.
We are looking to slowly ‘beautify’ our station, one project at a time. Recently, some of our members painted the meeting room, and new curtains are being made as I type (Thank you Mrs. Lefebvre!). We do what we can to keep up, either through volunteers’ hours or monetary donations, in order to keep our department’s maintenance budget as low as possible for our tax payers. However, there is one project on the outside that carries a cost of time and money beyond our volunteers’ means.
Have you noticed our shutters? Having been on the building for just under 20 years, they’ve seen better days. This is where you come in! It doesn’t require you to lift a tool or a paintbrush either! Starting in March we will be accepting donations to our department’s “Sponsor-A-Shutter” collection. We welcome contributions in any amount, however your tax deductible donation of $50 or more will buy at least one complete set of shutters and we will recognize you! Donations will be gratefully accepted through Memorial Day 2019 or until our need has been fulfilled. Our goal is to have both stations updated and looking fresh for our 2019 Fourth of July Celebration! Any funds that are left over after replacing the shutters will be put into other beautification projects at both stations.
If you are interested in donating to our “Sponsor-A-Shutter” program, please mail your contribution to: Andover Emergency Services Auxiliary, PO Box 117, Andover, NH 03216. You can also give your donation to any member of the auxiliary team. If you have questions you can contact us at AndoverESA@nullgmail.com . Thank you for your support!