Ed Hestin

CRANBERRY TWP — All facets of the community came together at a luncheon Thursday to celebrate the start of this year’s Community Days festival.

The Four Pillars lunch at the Cranberry Highlands Golf Course helps kick off the annual three-day celebration.

The four pillars represent the foundation of the community: churches, nonprofit groups, government and schools, and business.

More than 100 people packed the clubhouse of the golf course to listen to speakers including Cranberry Township Volunteer Fire Company President Ed Hestin, who talked about the new countywide initiative to recruit and retain more volunteer firefighters.

The initiative is the Cranberry Township Community Chest’s 2015 Project of the Year, and that organization hopes to raise more than $500,000 for it. All of the proceeds from Community Days, which officials previously said could be as much as $100,000, will go to the effort.

The project includes buying a $130,000 emergency trailer that will be used for training, education and recruitment for the 33 fire departments in the county, 32 of which are volunteer.

The county has agreed to pay for that trailer.

That will allow the money raised to go for scholarships at Butler County Community College. Those scholarships will be available to anyone who also takes a certified course to be a volunteer firefighter and who commits to serving as a firefighter for two years.

Hestin said the issue of the declining number of volunteer firefighters is a serious matter.

Dwindling numbers of volunteers, he said, could lead municipalities to have to convert to paid fire departments to recruit more firefighters. That, in turn, could lead to tax increases to help pay for them.

“This decline isn’t just in Butler County,” Hestin said. “It’s nationwide, it’s statewide. Everybody needs to realize this is a problem.”

Hestin said there are several factors contributing to the decline in numbers. People are busier now than in the past with their children and families. Others are turned off by the number of hours it takes to become certified.

“It’s become more difficult to find people with a good work/life balance who also have time to volunteer,” he said.

County Commissioner Bill McCarrier agreed and reminded the group every fire department in the county is volunteer except for Butler city.

He urged the crowd to act now before more volunteer firefighters are lost.

“We need to do something to help volunteer firefighters in Butler County,” he said. “We need you.”