Miami-Dade Fire and Rescue Needs Your Help

19Jul/090

Miami-Dade Fire and Rescue Needs Your Help

Charles Seifert of Miami-Dade Fire & Rescue Venom Response Team has asked for our help and this is something we need to do. They provide a very important service nationwide. Read below and you'll understand. For those of you who live in Florida a link to find your Commissioner exists. For those of you like me outside the state. I am contacting the Mayor.

Dear Concerned Citizens, 14 July, 2009

This letter is being sent to you to enlist your help and support in keeping the Venom Response Team from Miami Dade Fire Rescue alive, and able to provide community services and assist you in the event of an emergency.

As you are probably aware, MDFR’s Venom Response Team maintains the largest, most comprehensive, anti-venom bank in the United States. We are currently available for emergency responses on a 24/7 basis and can deploy and deliver 50 different anti-venom quickly throughout the State of Florida and beyond. Additionally, we respond to over 400 Africanized Bee calls a year (mitigating the situation if possible), as well as animal rescue calls in our county. We also provide community outreach, Envenomation Management and Africanized Bee Response Training for other agencies and “Dangerous Critters” education for many schools, public gatherings and private groups.

Budget cuts in our department are threatening our unit and our response capabilities. We could easily be cut back to skeleton staffing, which will eliminate many services and significantly slow our response times. We are doing everything we can to prevent these cuts but we need YOUR help!

Please take a moment to e-mail or call the Mayor’s Office and Miami Dade County Commissioners listed below and let them know how our program is important to you, your company, clients, or group. Our response and education area is not limited to Dade County so your voices need to be heard to let the Commissioners know that you do care and don’t want Venom Response to be dismantled. Their meeting to decide on cuts is upcoming July 21, 2009, please make your voices heard before that date.

Our services are important to many, in and out of the Dade County area, and we want to continue to be here for you. Today our unit’s life is in your hands. Please feel free to forward this to any of your contacts. The more voices they hear the better! Thank you in advance for your support and assistance.

Best Regards,

Charles

MDFR Venom Response Team – 786-331-4444 mdfrantivenom@miamidade.gov

Mayor Carlos Alvarez - (305) 375-5071 mayor@miamidade.gov

To find out who your Comissioner is please visit the Miami-Dade website