Ulster County Volunteers’ Video Project Helps with National Recruitment Campaign

By Shane M. Liebler, Senior Editor

Like the majority of volunteer fire departments in New York State, Rosendale and Tillson were in serious need of members. And like many New York State FDs, they needed some form of outreach that encouraged folks in their respective communities to join them.

That simple, initial need was the spark that led to a full-fledged, professionally-produced webseries now being used in the National Volunteer Fire Council’s “Make Me a Firefighter” campaign. Similar to FASNY’s statewide “Fire in You” campaign, Make Me a Firefighter uses media and resources to help volunteer fire departments add to their memberships.

RecruitNY Was the Start

It all started in March 2010, when the Ulster County Office of Emergency Management reached out to Ray Preziosi, a volunteer firefighter of 47 years and veteran film director of photography in the motion picture industry, to create a recruitment public service announcement. Next, Ray and his wife, Carole, a past Rosendale Fire District Commissioner, put together a direct mail campaign for Rosendale and Tillson Fire Departments centered around RecruitNY in 2012. The concept was “Ride with Us” and the mailers featured friendly photos of volunteer firefighters to invite the public to learn more at the RecruitNY open house that year. This was the birth of the idea the departments could use a first-hand point of view to create interest in volunteer firefighting.

So, when Ray was contacted again to do a PSA five years later, he wanted to do more than just a commercial. He would instead start coordinating a webseries called “Ride with Us.” The Ulster County Volunteer Firemen’s association bankrolled the project along with support from the county’s Office of Emergency Management and the Association of Fire Districts of Ulster County. They produced the first seven episodes in 2017 and premiered them the following year.

“We thought it would be great to get something on social media that would be short and entertaining and get it out there so that’s when we came up with the idea for two- to three-minute episodes to share,” Carole said.

A Soft Sell

The Ride With Us narrative delivers a soft-sell approach to recruitment. The series’ goal is not to

show all “lights and sirens,” but, instead, spotlight the qualities of volunteer firefighters themselves, the community that surrounds the volunteer fire service, and the skills, trades and values that are available to recruits. Episode topics range from basic firefighting tasks, such as using SCBA, PPE, thermal imaging cameras, pump operations and driving fire apparatus, to the skills that are necessary to enter and extinguish a fully-involved structure fire.

To produce the series, Ray and Carole tapped the organizational skills, fire service experience and connections of Eric Orr, a Wallkill volunteer firefighter who suddenly found himself as a producer of the Ride with Us series that included a professional actor and friend of the Preziosis, as host.

The basic idea was to follow the mini-adventures of host Rick Sheinmel as he navigated all the experiences common to volunteer firefighters, but largely unknown to the public. Orr was responsible for getting all the other “talent” – volunteers from across Ulster County – together and prepared to demonstrate their knowledge on camera.

“I had no experience with the film industry other than paying for it and sitting in the chair watching it,” Orr said. “It’s been an experience I’ll never regret.”

Another ‘Ride’

The first episodes were a very bootstraps-type endeavor that tapped into the Preziosis’ network of friends in addition to the volunteers from Wallkill Fire Department, Marlboro Fire Department and Ulster Hose Co. in Kingston with no acting experience. In 2021, they were asked to do it again, this time by the NVFC for their Make Me a Firefighter campaign.

“The first time around, obviously it was a minimal crew, we shot it with very few people and did it quickly,” Carole said. “This time around, as a feature film DP, we wanted to give it more of a cinematic look.

“Because of the size and scope of this most recent episode, we [Cottage Lane Productions] teamed up with Punch Card Films to give us an assist,” she said.

It was shot in late 2021 at the Walker Valley Fire Co. and released in late January 2022. Now there are more episodes planned.

“It’s great to keep this going and growing,” said Orr, who watched the entire project blossom from an idea on a piece of paper to a piece of a national campaign. “In talking to counterparts in other counties and throughout the Hudson Valley, my advice to them is just stick with it, if you’re trying something new, don’t give up on it because you never know what just might work.

“We have to get so creative and think outside of the box as we’re trying to recruit members and retain members,” he said, adding recruitment requires a multi-pronged approach that may include something as elaborate as video or even something as simple as going door-to-door. “I don’t think it’s one key to success, I think it’s all these little things together that just work.”

Infotainment

To that point, the videos have worked, earning tens of thousands of views and helping get recruits through firehouse doors.

“I think it works because the fire service in general is so naturally cinematic,” Ray said. “I mean, you just point a camera almost anywhere when there are fire engines and fire activity happening and you almost are guaranteed to get some pretty good footage.”

The other key to Ride with Us is that it’s not overtly a recruitment video like those early PSAs Ray and Carole worked on. It’s genuine in its purpose to expose what equates to some pretty cool stuff and educate the audience without asking them to join straight up.

“Recruitment is a struggle for many volunteer and combination departments. One thing we have found is that if a person can see themselves in the role of a fire service volunteer, they are more likely to take that step to join,” NVFC CEO Sarah Lee said. “Ride With Us is an innovative approach in that it makes the fire department more accessible and less intimidating to the public, so that it removes those barriers to recruitment.”

That was indeed the main message behind Ride with Us from the start. The entire concept centered around accessibility and the meaningful relationships you can develop as part of the volunteer fire service sister- and brotherhood.

“When I was filling out the application [in 1975], the Assistant Chief was there. And he said to me, ‘You’re going to meet people here in the volunteer fire department that will become friends for life,’” Ray said. “He was absolutely right.

“That aspect I want to bring out more in future episodes,” he said. “It’s a benefit that people really don’t promote.”

To get these episodes done, Cottage Lane Productions will continue working with the NVFC and seek out other major sponsors to ensure the episodes continue to get bigger crews, higher production value and, of course, more volunteer firefighter recruits.