KRONENWETTER, WI (WSAU) — First responders in the Village of Kronenwetter received a pleasant surprise Wednesday when the WPS Foundation awarded them nearly $4,000 in grant money for new equipment.
The Village Fire Department was awarded $2,000 for new helmets, which Chief Kris Grod says came at just the right time. “Our [current] helmets are set to expire at the end of this year,” he said. “Fire helmets are good for ten years, so we are fortunate enough to receive this grant.”
The grant will be used to buy eight helmets, which isn’t enough for his whole department but it’s a start. “It’s great to have good businesses in the area that give back. Our budgets are tight, and any little bit of money helps us.”
Grod says he has 24 firefighters on his staff, so money for the rest of the helmets will come from the department’s general operating budget.
“It’s a good start,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Village Police Department was awarded a check for just over $1,600 to purchase a new device that will be able to test recreational drugs for dangerous substances in the field. Chief Terry McHugh says it will bring a new level of safety to his staff.
“If there’s the presence of Fentanyl or Carfentanyl, It’s going to get sucked up into that system safely,” he said. McHugh added that even small amounts of those drugs can be dangerous to the officer, either through breathing the particles in or coming in contact with them through exposed skin.
He describes the device as an 18-inch long box with a hood system that will allow an officer to place the drugs in question inside, a mechanism will then separate the dangerous substance from the drugs.
Currently, his staff has to spend an hour or more running samples to the State Crime Lab in Wausau for testing, which is a danger not only to the officer but to the public as well. They also have to work around the Crime Lab’s schedule, meaning samples could sit for hours before being tested.
The WPS Foundation Public Safety grant program allows first responders to apply for funding for new equipment. This year over two dozen departments will be awarded a combined $50,000.
Since the inception of the Rewarding Responders grant program, the WPS Foundation has awarded more than $300,000 to more than 170 agencies.