CRANBERRY TWP — The Cranberry Township Community Chest has placed an order to buy two emergency trailers that should be in use by June.

Those trailers will be for the use of the 31 fire departments in Butler County for training, educational and recruitment purposes.

The community chest as part of its 2015 Project of the Year previously had planned to buy just one trailer for $130,000.

But Bruce Mazzoni, treasurer of the community chest, said that instead of buying one trailer, the organization decided to buy two less expensive trailers at a total cost of $150,000.

Mazzoni said the extra $20,000 will come from an outside donor and not from donations made to the fire fund.

The fund is a $500,000 initiative to recruit and retain volunteer firefighters in the county. As of Tuesday, the community chest had collected $348,557, including $2,030 in the past week.

Mazzoni said he and other officials made the decision to buy two trailers after it became evident that scheduling problems would arise with only one.

“We started doing calculations and knew there could be a little conflict,” he said. “We looked at it and saw we could get two of them for a little more money.”

In addition to the trailers, the community chest will soon transfer $210,000 to Butler County Community College to establish 18 scholarships.

Anyone who pledges two years of service to a volunteer fire department will be eligible for a scholarship.

The organization wants to transfer money into BC3 now to start earning income on the endowments.

“The goal is that each and every year we will have 18 new students with (firefighting) certifications to help their local fire company,” Mazzoni said.

As of now, the community chest needs to raise more than $150,000 to reach its goal for the 18 scholarships.

The most recent round of donors includes $500 gifts from Canon U.S.A. and from the Andree family; $125 gifts from Kennedy Diversified and Vince and Jane Profeta, and $100 from Jeannette Dougherty and from Bob and Judi Boren.

It also includes $50 donations from Stewart and Jeannette Lawrence, Bill and Marie Price, Nick and Barbara Salvia, Michael V. Rose, Wilma Dickson, Tom and Marissa Donahoe and Larry V. Capra; $25 from Christopher and Stacy Ripper, Terence Sanctis, Richard and Robin Geier, Jian Liu, Brandi Ruiz, Joan Ignatenko and Greg Vecchi; $20 from Anthony and Joy Schiavone; and $10 from Susan May.

Anyone wishing to donate to the project can visit the community chest’s website at www.ctcchest.org.