As you know when you are driving down the road you know that you must! have a Plate on the back of your vehicle. As well with you also see that some of them are your favorite college team or your Florida Nature Plates. Some of them look like they are yellow for City, County, and State ordinances.

         Now some of these organizations receives a percentage of the money that goes when someone buys a specialty plate from the Department of Florida Motor Vehicles. What if there was a way to create a Florida Volunteer License Plate to help support Florida Fire Volunteers? It wouldn't hurt as well with it would be a nice fundraising idea to help out the surrounding Volunteer agencies collect money to help out around there community by improving gear, equipment, and funding for training.

          But before they would be able to start they would need to get a representative (a Florida Senator) that would be willing to help them present the plate design to the floor so the plate design can be approved so average citizens of Florida could pre buy the plate if they are interested. But in order for the plate to begin production and to be allowed to go on back of vehicles, then there must be over 4,000 pre orders of the plate! Which does not seem like a  lot of people because there are over 20 million people!

Idea concept of the Florida Volunteer Plate

Florida Vol. Grant Assistance Program 

          Now you might be thinking that there are hundreds of grants that Florida Volunteer Fire Departments can aplie to why is a big issue? Well your not wrong there are hundreds of grants that we can applie to but the main issue is that they don't know what is out there. They don't know when they open and or when they close. They are not always give correct information about what needs to be given to the people (documentation wise) when they try to submit a application to the grant assistance program. And finally the grant application program requires you most of the time to write a essay into why it is needed. 

District Map

Districts

• There are 4 Districts: North West, North East, SouthWest and South East. Every district has a District Chief of that area and then Battalion Chiefs of every 5 company's/departments that are in the district. 

• Example:

For every 5 Department/company = 1 Captain (Non elected but choose by BC of the area) 

For every 5 Captains = 1 BC for that area (Non elected but choose by district chief) 

There is always 1 Assistant DC and 1 DC (Elected by people in area)

Grant Writing Board

The grant writing board is where a group of people come together to ensure that the money is going to a needing deporatment in order to do such of the following

+ Help pay for

- New equipment

- Training cost

- New trucks/vehicles

- New gear

- New stations / station upgrades

How many people is allowed to be on the board

In order to be on this board to decide where the money goes you must be a Florida Citizen for more then 4 years. Must not be affiliated with any fire Departments that are applying for the grants. Finally must under stand basic English writing and grammar that relate to fire needs.  

• Starting off with 9 people allowed to be on the board

• 3 people being civilians that have no connection to fire departments

Access to grant writing assistance

- Any volunteer Fire Agencies in the state of Florida that is requiring assistance with money through grants that can apply every 2 years

Social Media Outreach

          When it comes out to reaching out to your community you must be able to reach your demographic that you are targeting. Now first question that you have to ask yourself is what that demographic maybe? Are you reaching out to Florida people for support in the volunteer agencies trying to get a bill changed in the house about Emergency lighting laws for POV vehicles to make it easier for Florida Volunteers to respond faster, safer, and more professionally? Are you sharing stories about different agencies around Florida that are impacting there community and making a change for the better? Are you making a social media post about education of fire safety in the house hold when winter is lurking around the corner? Are you trying to reach out to people that are interested in being firefighters and trying to recruit people for departments around the State of Florida?

          Again it is all about what is your demographic community is going to be about and what message that you are trying to reach out to. There are multiple platforms that exist out there but that will determine what might be posted on each one. For example if you are trying to reach out to the audience of educational tips and tricks about fire work safety on the 4th of July you would want to use younger audience platforms. For example you could use Tik Tok, YouTube, Instagram, etc... But lets say you are making a post about recruitment. Then you might want to shift your gears and reach out on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Reason why is because the maturity and age group that you would want to reach out to. You would not want to look on tiktok for a recruiting platform but instead use it for a funnier outreach. 

Example of Social Media Educational Outreach 

Example of Funny Social Media Outreaches

These videos help reach audiences with all ranges of backgrounds. Either when it hits Humorous audiences, Educational Audiences, or the first responders audiences. They always seem to bring people together to entertain them to something similar on how first responders see the world in different views. Even though the Ethos in these videos can attract people it also shows great Pathos and can be see when people watch them. Audiences have been know to die laughing at his videos or also just feeling exactly how Jason (the director and main character of the video) feels in the videos. 

Example of Social Outreach by community communication

Finally here is a little view with Social Media outreach on how us Volunteer Responders see things in the real world simplified for you all.