Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman recently presented the 2004 Stihl National Forestry Heroism Award to Mark S. Warnick, founder of Helping Our Own, a nonprofit organization that coordinates used equipment donations to fire departments.

Warnick retired as assistant chief of the Brixey and Rockbridge (Mo.) Volunteer Fire Department in 2000 to found Helping Our Own. After looking for much-needed equipment donations for his own department, he found he had more equipment than he could use and helped 15 other fire departments in the county. Now headquartered in Jackson, Mich., Helping Our Own has since collected and distributed more than $28 million worth of used equipment to 610 fire departments.

The Stihl award is for service to the wildland community. What is your involvement in the wildland area?

By far, most of the departments that Helping Our Own assists are rural and have urban-wildland interface responsibilities. Oftentimes, if a small rural department has the resources needed, they can prevent a 10- or 20-acre fire from becoming a 500- or 1,000-acre fire. Helping Our Own assists many in getting this equipment, but there are many more departments that need help. In fact, according to a report by FEMA and the NFPA, approximately 55,000 firefighters in the United States don't have proper personal protective equipment.

How has the Helping Our Own organization grown since you founded it?

Thanks to some very generous sponsors, we now have the use of 18,000 square feet of building space and ways to transport equipment and apparatus. We use a semi with a 45-foot trailer for equipment, two 24-foot box trucks and a 53-foot, drop-deck trailer for transporting apparatus. Shortly, if we can find the funding, we will be refurbishing all of the equipment and apparatus we receive. While we already refurbish a lot of the equipment, our goal is to refurbish everything that can be refurbished.

The legal liabilities of donating used equipment are a deterrent to donations in some states. If a department wants to donate equipment, what should they be aware of?

The main consideration is give us enough time to raise money to pick the equipment up. Funding is sporadic at best, and it takes time to raise the money that we need to send out a truck. As for legal liabilities, our attorneys have worked out a way to protect the donating departments, plus we remove any identifying marks whenever possible.

What are Helping Our Own's greatest needs at the moment?

Our greatest need is funding. If we had sufficient funding, whether from new sponsors or from individuals, we could help hundreds of departments above and beyond what we help now.

In the last four and a half years, we have helped more than 600 departments with equipment and apparatus with a total used value of more than $28 million. Thanks to the sponsors we have, we don't charge a dime to these departments. Unfortunately, we know of thousands of departments that need help, but we continue to fight to gain enough financial support to do more.

All of the departments that we help have annual budgets under $15,000, and they pay all of their expenses out of that. Most of the departments have budgets under $4,000 annually, with some as low as a few hundred per year.

Does the fire service manufacturing industry help?

Unfortunately, only one or two manufacturers have helped. Surprisingly enough, I get feedback from sales representatives and equipment dealers for the manufacturers, and I continue to hear rumors that they view us as somewhat of a threat to their business. What they fail to realize is that the vast majority of these departments would be lucky to have enough money to buy new gloves for their firefighters — at least at this point. Of course, we are hopeful that as time goes on we will gain more support from the manufacturing industry.

How do departments register donations and make requests through Helping Our Own?

The best way to donate equipment and money is though our Web site, www.helpingourown.org. On the left-hand side of the Helping Our Own site are buttons to donate equipment, apply for assistance, make a monetary donation or sign up for our e-newsletter. Keep in mind that Helping Our Own is a registered 501(c)(3) federally tax-exempt non-profit organization. Departments that do not have Internet access can call Helping Our Own toll-free at 877-446-6435.