NEWELL—The line to get a hearty meal of barbecue and all the fixings ran all the way through the fire station and out the door at the annual Fireman’s Barbecue on Saturday, September 5. The popular event brings the community together during the Labor Day celebration to support the Newell Volunteer Fire Department.
There are 28 volunteer firefighters who make up the Newell Volunteer Fire Department. They all work hard to pull together the Labor Day Barbecue—one of their largest fundraisers for the fire station.
The Fire Department has been putting on the event long enough now that they have most of the details ironed out. “It has been trial and error for a lot of years, but over the years, we’ve been able to get fairly close—some years we have a lot [of meat] left, some years there’s not very much,” explained Fire Chief Verl Tifft, who has been in his role for 12 years. “This year we cooked about 120 pounds of beef and pork, and then we had two lambs…we always have lamb, we always do, it is kind of a Newell thing!”
Even though the Labor Day Barbecue has been a staple of the Labor Day celebration for a while now, the event didn’t always happen during that celebration, but changing the date made for larger community turnout. “For probably 15 years—previous years from that, we had the [barbecue] Father’s Day weekend—but decided to make a switch because Labor Day is a Newell event and do that weekend to bring everything together,” shared Tifft.
The hall was packed with hungry community members supporting the fire department while enjoying tasty barbecue sandwiches, chips, potato salad, dessert and cold drinks.
The Labor Day Barbecue is the Newell Fire Department’s largest single fundraiser of the year. The department does have one other large fundraiser, but it is an event that benefits all fire departments in the area. “Our other fundraiser that we have is the Festival of Trees, but that’s kind of Eastern Butte County—we split that up between other departments and the ambulance. But as far as a single fundraiser, yes, this would be our biggest fundraiser,” explained Tifft.
The money raised from the barbecue will go toward the department’s next project—updating some of its trucks. Tifft said, “We’re looking at updating some trucks—it’s kind of our next step to go.”
Tifft is thankful for all of the support the department receives from the local community. “Without the community support, we wouldn’t be here. That’s the biggest thing—without their help and support, there wouldn’t be a volunteer fire department,” said Tifft. “This is a thank you to the community for everything that they do for us.”
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