Dedicated to the citizens of Mason County, Washington since 1886
Dedicated to the citizens of Mason County, Washington since 1886
The North Mason Regional Fire Authority's new sign says "thank you."
Whether you drive by the North Mason Regional Fire Authority station during the day or night, you'll notice some friendly words light up a new sign outside the station.
The sign was not included with the price of the new fire station built on Northeast Old Belfair Highway, according to Assistant Fire Chief Scott Cooper. There was hope the North Mason Firefighter's Association could donate the station a sign.
"What happened was that, because of COVID-19, they were unable to do any fundraising for three years and they fundraise pretty well. We do a couple events, the Taste of Hood Canal, but it's called something different, Summerfest and Tahuya Days," Cooper said. "We do a burger stand and that's how they get all their money. They're there to support the operations of the fire district and the firefighters so we just didn't feel like it was appropriate to ask them to donate the sign."
A grant became available through the Community Foundation of South Puget Sound, which aids Thurston, Mason and Lewis counties by supporting arts, education, health, housing, food and environmental work through grants and scholarships.
Cooper found out about the organization and that they were giving money to nonprofit organizations through a resiliency grant for nonprofits that were unable to raise money during COVID.
"We applied for the grant, took maybe a month or two to find out and then they just called us and said, 'Yeah, you're what we're all about, we're going to give you $25,000,'" Cooper said. "That was about the right amount, (but) didn't cover it all. They did have some other fundraising money from before so they were able to pay for the whole thing."
The district did some shopping for signs and chose Hanson Sign Co. of Silverdale. The pedestal was built as part of the fire station and it was just waiting for a sign to be placed on top of it.
The sign cost about $30,000 and was installed Jan. 9. NMRFA has some training for four people within NMRFA to learn to operate the sign.
"Abe Gardner got a little bit of a tutorial on it, so he was able to figure out how to put that up there," Cooper said. "Our hope is to be able to deliver messages to the community, disasters, burn ban information, CPR classes, things like that. There will be many more things but the main goal is if traffic is backed up here, everybody will read our message."
NMRFA has a similar sign in Tahuya, which will make learning this new sign easier. The sign can be operated from a phone, and Cooper said the messages will be updated regularly.
The sign can also display photos, video and animations.
With the sign installed, NMRFA's move into the new station now feels like home.
"I feel really good that we got that sign, even sooner than we thought we were going to get it. We weren't certain what we were going to do but that grant kind of just did it for us," Cooper said. "There's not a whole lot left to do, if anything. Couple things here and there that are new station, new building-type issues, but our contractor is going to take care of all of that. We do have to install our base station radio, but that's happening next week. A couple internal speakers, that's about it."
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