We are Back! Vice President Brian Palmer is once again the Chairman for our participation in the March 17, 2018 Utica St. Patrick’s Day Parade! He is challenging each fire Department in Herkimer and Oneida County to be a part of the largest group in the parade. While it may not be for a World Record for participation, we want our volunteer firefighters, their families, their relatives, and our Cancer families to be a part of our Believe Group. We are pushing for 400...which will be the most since we started! We will also be coming out with a new design long sleeve T shirt, regular T shirt and sweatshirts in adult and child sizes. These will be offered at cost. These designs should be mailed to every fire Department within…

On December 8, New York State Tool Company hosted their Holiday Dinner event at Valentino’s in Washington Mills, NY. At this event Cathy Jenkins, office manager, along with Matt and Lisa Wilsey presented Brian and Sarah McQueen with a $5,000 donation to the Believe 271 Foundation. This award came from a fund raiser held at the business this year. The members of the Believe 271 Foundation thanks the Wilsey’s along with the dedicated employees at New York State Tool. Donations such as this will assure us that no one will ever fight Cancer and life-threatening illnesses again.

The Believe 271 Foundation, through a project grant from Assemblyman Anthony Brindisi,and proceeds obtained from their Pink Tie Gala, have purchased 450 white firefighting hoods for interior firefighters in departments that participated in a survey sent out this past July. The Foundation has created a Standard Operating Best Practice for departments to use in creating a Second Hood Program at their Department. Research has proven that carcinogenic agents filter within these hoods when exposed to fires of today. While these 450 hoods will not cover every interior firefighter in Oneida and Herkimer Counties, it will provide a first step objective into protecting our volunteers from Cancer caused by dirty hoods. For those departments who submitted the survey back in July, we will begin distributing these hoods during the first part…