Boonville Police, Fire Departments battle to raise food for Thanksgiving community dinner

BOONVILLE, Ind. (WFIE) - As Thanksgiving approaches, first responders in Boonville are choosing to give back in a special way

The fire and police departments are giving back by taking part in a friendly competition to raise the most amount of food for the annual community Thanksgiving Dinner.

The community Thanksgiving dinner is an annual tradition in Boonville, to make sure everyone in Warrick county is able to have a hot meal on the holiday.

Boonville Fire Captain Josh Russelburg, said “There’s a bunch of church and community organizers come together and form an assembly line where anyone in Warrick county can request a meal and then they’ll organize everything and make them a Thanksgiving meal.”

This year those organizations are having trouble gathering enough food to make the number of meals they need.

So the fire department decided to step up, and challenged the police department to also.

“They jumped on board really quick and it’s really nice, because usually if you’re dialing 9-1-1 its not the greatest day in the world for you, so it’s nice to do something on a positive note,” said Capt. Russelburg.

So the friendly competition began.

Boonville Officer, Casey Miller, said “It’s always fun to play back and forth with the fire department.”

Both have a common goal of providing for the community.

“A lot of people don’t understand...it’s the reason I come to work every day is to help so it’s great to be helping just even more,” said Officer Miller.

Capt. Russelburg said, “We’re obviously in the profession to be helping the community we just go above and beyond we’re servants so it works out great.”

Of course, it may be a little competitive.

“Team fire department we can’t lose because if we do We’ll hear about it for the next year,” said Capt. Russelburg

But both sides said, whether you’re team fire or police, it’s the community that matters.

If you’d like to donate food on behalf of either department or just in general, you can drop off food items or cash at either department in Boonville.

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