VIDEO: Beautiful, hand-made wooden American flags to benefit local fire departments -- that’s the idea behind Flags for Frontlines.
Michael Jolley is a 17-year-old volunteer firefighter at Ryegate Fire Department.
“I just have a passion for volunteer firefighting, I went to emergency services and criminal justice at Riverbank Career and Technical Center in Bradford where I just really found my passion in Emergency Services through that,” he says.
And he knows first-hand just how far a couple extra bucks go at the station. “Fire departments need a lot of things but the budgets just don’t allow it. Like, fire gear for one, a lot of people don’t know that fire gear costs anywhere between $2,500 to $3,000 just for a set of fire gear,” Jolley explains.
He spent the summer thinking about how he could help raise money for these small departments, and decided to use his woodworking background and local connections to make a difference.