APPLETON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – After years of fundraising, an organization that supports emergency responders in Outagamie County showed off its new equipment that will help make an even bigger impact.
The Outagamie County Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) held an open house to display its new response truck and trailer outside Festival Foods on W. Northland Avenue Thursday.
Outagamie County CERT is a group of volunteers who respond to emergency situations in support of emergency responders. CERT provides things like hydration, nutrition, cooling in hot weather, warmth in cold weather, and shelter from the elements to help emergency responders stay on the scene for as long as necessary.
The new trailer offers space to provide food, rest and emotional support for emergency responders during times of crisis. It also includes a bathroom for emergency responders to use.
In October of 2021, Friends of CERT kicked off a campaign to raise funds to purchase a new truck to haul the CERT trailer. The organization purchased the $75,000 2023 Ford F350 in October of 2023. In June of 2023, the group embarked on another campaign to replace the response trailer. Due to the overwhelming support of emergency responders, local businesses, civic organizations, Outagamie County and many others, the group was able to raise the $135,000 needed to purchase a new trailer.
The chairman of the board of the Friends of CERT, Gene Reece, says newer vehicles were needed.
“We started working out of the back seat of people’s cars, moved into a decommissioned ambulance and then from the ambulance in 2016 the city of Appleton donated a small pickup truck that was used as a tow vehicle to a trailer and we used that for the last seven years. Now that vehicle was a 1996 vehicle and we saw that it needed to be upgraded,” he said. “It [trailer] provides a safe storage area so the equipment is stored safely but it’s also safe for our responders to get the equipment out. So in the past, they might have had to raise up over their head to get stuff out, now it comes out at ground level.”
In the last year, CERT has volunteered over 2,000 hours in communities, notably at large incidents, including assisting with sheltering needs following the Kaukauna tornado and the flooding in the city of Appleton.
