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Zion Lutheran Church Donates Hand Warmers To Pittsfield First Responders
By Andy McKeever, iBerkshires Staff
03:00PM / Thursday, October 06, 2016
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Back row: Police Chief Michael Wynn, Firefighter Wayne Ovitt, EMT Max Koivisto of Action Ambulance, Kevin Wall from Action Ambulance, Rev. Timothy Weisman, Alicia Aldam of Zion Lutheran, and Fire Chief Robert Czerwinski. Front Row: Officer Thomas Bowler Jr., Officer Darren Derby, Officer Sean Klink, and Firefighter Mike Marran.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Often during the winter first responders are out in bitter cold weather for extended periods of time.
 
The Zion Lutheran Church recognized that and decided to help keep them warm. On Thursday the church donated 840 hand and foot warmers for the Police Department, Fire Department, and the two ambulance services to share this winter. 
 
"Come the winter time, it gets cold, it gets bitter out there and it is just comfortable to be able to warm you hands up," Fire Chief Robert Czerwinski said. "Even last night, it was a fall evening but I did notice how cool it had gotten by 10, 11 o'clock last night. You needed to have a jacket. In the next couple weeks and months, these are going to be welcomed on long duration events."
 
The church has what it calls "God's Work, Our Hands" fundraising event and this year the local congregation pooled money and reeled in a grant to help first responders. 
 
"It fell on Sept. 11 this year and we were brainstorming, and I was talking with one of the detectives who is at Guidos all of the time, and it was 'what can we do for as many departments that is practical?' The idea of the hand warmers came up. You guys are out in some nasty elements and weather," said Alicia Aldam, of Zion Lutheran. "We figured this would be the best bang for the buck."
 
Rev. Timothy Weisman said the church took in donations in just a two-week period and bought as many as they could afford. 
 
"I am a believer in if you are going to donate something to support police, fire, and ambulance, you might as well ask them what they need. That's exactly what Alicia did rather than give you all something you don't need," Weisman said.
 
"This idea of God's work, our hands, of you all doing God's work, hand warmers seem to be a really nice connection."
 
The gift is very practice, said Police Chief Michael Wynn, because currently many officers purchase them on their own but hand warmers aren't something the department supplies. The hand warmers were divvied up between the agencies but Wynn says first responders typically share such responses regardless of each individual's role in an incident.
 
"We will let our people take some of these and put them in their patrol bags so they are with them. But we will also put them in our operations trucks and when the operations trucks are deployed, it doesn't matter. If I walk to EMS and they've got them, they'll hand them to me," Wynn said.
 
The instances when the hand warmers will be useful seem endless. Wynn said some 20 times a year officers are handling perimeter work, and the Special Response Team can find themselves in extended operations, and even the officers handling traffic during the annual Christmas tree lighting will use them.
 
But ideally, the agencies won't needed them.
 
"We hope you don't have to use them because you are inside and nothing is going on," Aldam said.
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