The Redondo Beach Fire Department is one of five fire departments competing in IKEA’s Rescue Remodel contest to win a new $25,000 kitchen remodel. But despite the fact RBFD firefighters live in a leaky 60-year-old building with 28-year-old kitchen cupboards and counters, and have taken pay cuts three years straight, the department is running third-to-last in the contest, which runs through February.
RBFD Division Chief Steve Hyink said the department feels a little reluctant to ask, but they’d like the community’s help.
“As a rule, the firefighters I work with are willing to give their all and ask for nothing,” Hyink wrote on the contest website. “It goes against their grain to do so.”
In an attempt to get more votes from the web, a group of firefighters got together and created a video to direct more viewers to vote for their station. The video, “We Cook Our Food in a Hopeless Place,” sung to Rhianna’s “We Found Love,” was created to send to the competition in New York to tell them “we’re gunna whoop ‘em one,” said Fire Chief Dan Madrigal.
All the RBFD needs is your vote. And while there is little doubt each department competing has a need for a new kitchen, RBFD makes a pretty urgent case on the contest website.
Hyink notes that plans for a kitchen upgrade in the slightly dilapidated Fire Station #1 have repeatedly been shelved – first, when heavy rains required spending money on a new roof, and more recently, when the money set aside was used for emergency equipment to help people having difficult breathing, and to make it easier to give an IV to children.
“There really is no option or hesitation when faced with a decision to purchase something for the community…the kitchen can wait,” Hyink said.
“As a chief officer it is frustrating, because it seems like every time we try to find a few extra bucks to help out the firefighters and give them some simple upgrades, something always comes up that is more essential,” he said. “Our appliances are high quality and have lasted for 20 years, they still have a lot of life left and we can make do with what we have. We don’t like to ask for help, but it would really be appreciated if we could just get some cabinets and a new counter.”
Visit rescueremodel.com to vote.
