COVID-19 makes Lenten fish fry fundraising tough for volunteer fire companies

LANSFORD, Pa. — It's a Friday night in Lansford and since it's also a Friday in Lent, over at the American Fire Company that means fish is what's for dinner.

This volunteer fire company in Carbon County like so many others across Pennsylvania, takes advantage of the Lenten season to raise money by serving up everything from fish, pierogies and pizza.

But with the coronavirus taking over life as we knew it, it's putting a strain on the fire company's fundraising.

“We always struggle with fundraising to begin with, but now it's really hard with everybody being laid off and everybody not working and we're really based on fundraising,” said Kevin Rutch, president of American Fire.

While the Lenten dinner was still a go, volunteers had to cancel their two biggest fundraisers.

“A food truck festival, the whole town comes together, we have food trucks lined up all across our back street here as well as our meat raffle, we chance off a bunch of meat,” said Zachary Gilbert, the vice president of the fire company.

In Luzerne County, the Harwood Fire Company in Hazle Township made the decision last week to cancel its Friday fish fry due to concerns about COVID-19.

“We have a lot of our members that are on the front lines, so exposing them to the community as well as other staff that aren't on the front lines is what our major concern was,” said member Erika Petrole, who is the company’s fire police and also in charge of fundraising.

Petrole says now after hearing from officials at Lehigh Valley Hospital in Hazleton about how rapidly the coronavirus is spreading through in the Hazleton area,  she's glad they made that tough decision.

But volunteers at Harwood are continuing to raise money in other ways that maintain social distancing.

“We do have a peanut butter egg sale going on that we're still doing as well as our Guns and Bucks raffle tickets,” said Petrole.

Both the Harwood fire Company in Hazle Township and the American Fire Company in Lansford hope to get back to their regular fundraising routine as soon as it's safe to do so.