POUGHKEEPSIE – The Poughkeepsie Fire Department helped Santa navigate snow-covered roads in the city on Christmas Eve day to deliver gifts to eight families that were adopted by the firefighters of IAFF Local 596. The professional firefighters partnered with individuals and organizations to spread cheer on Christmas Eve. In addition to the select families, the caravan of fire trucks stopped if they saw children out and Santa gave them a small gift.
The union members selected eight families based on recommendations from community leaders. Fire Department Lieutenant Paul Bucher contacted the adults of each family to get the age and gender of each child in the house along with their wish lists. The union members then went shopping for a large number of gifts for the kids.
Their efforts were supported by the Shamrock Association, The Chance Theater, Baroni Recycling, Marshall & Sterling, along with Mayor Rob Rolison and Councilwoman Natasha Cherry. The Chance Theater manager, Nikki Johannessen held a toy drive at a recent concert and worked with Todd Bender from the Shamrock Association to distribute the toys to some less-fortunate children and used the rest to support the fire department Santa run. “I am so happy that we are making a lot of kids in our community have a merry Christmas,” Johannessen said.
“Our firefighters are always doing things to help our city and joining with them today to deliver gifts really put me in the holiday spirit,” Rolison beamed. Local 596 President Nick Bucher said “With the help of our donors we were able to really make Christmas special for several deserving families and that makes us feel good.”
In preparation for Friday’s deliveries, a group of firefighters, friends, and family gathered at Mahoney’s Irish Pub to sort and wrap the gifts and then separate them into boxes for each of the eight families.
Santa and his elves were caught on video on Main Street on Christmas Eve day:
