Earlier this week, the Plum Coulee Fire Department presented the donations it received during its annual Plum Fest parade boot drive to the Rolling Barrage PTSD Foundation. The organization provides financial support to groups providing PTSD supports and therapies to military, first responders, RCMP and emergency healthcare providers.
"We raised $2,500 at our parade," explained Fire Chief Tony Fehr during a cheque presentation Wednesday night, noting it's the most they've ever raised. "It was really, really great to see all the participation from the community in the boot drive this year, our best ever, it was awesome. Our guys chose early on in the year to make Rolling Barrage our support for the year, and the community came out big for us."
Rolling Barrage is comprised of two parts including a coast-to-coast motorcycle ride and awareness campaign to combat the stigma associated with PTSD and other mental health-related concerns. The second part is the Foundation which accepts and designates the donations received to organizations which provide evidence-based tools, services, activities, and therapies to support those living with PTSD.
"This is the second year we've been invited down here by the Plum Coulee Fire Department," noted Mark Goldade, a retired Master Corporal with the Royal Canadian Air Force and Chief Operating Officer of the Foundation who accepted the donation. "The fact they've gone out of their way, when they're not even in direct line of our route, to support our organization and support everything we do is over the top. This is amazing. It means so much to us to ride down here and receive this donation for two years in a row now."
Local connection to national effort
"Anybody in emergency services, or in the military, has a connection with PTSD," added Fehr. "Almost everybody in the service has been touched by something, and some people deal with it in different ways. We found the cause and the work Rolling Barrage does throughout the country, working toward helping people dealing with PTSD and mental health disorders and those kind of things. The work they do touched us, and we thought this is a good way we can help across the country."
Goldade noted Rolling Barrage may not provide frontline support, rather the funds to assist with that, but the organization offers support in another way.
"That's the camaraderie, the fellowship, the healing you get on the road, because it is healing," he shared. "It is therapeutic when you come out with like-minded individuals suffering the same thing you do that normal people can't understand."
Goldade knows all too well what it is like to face PTSD.
"I was part of the second rotation into Iraq in 2015 and 2016, not a lot of people can relate to the stuff that we had to go through," he said. "I talked to a shrink at the OSI clinic (operational stress injury), and the first one they sent me to was more in shock with some of the stuff we dealt with instead of understanding. How do you heal somebody with that? You can't, right? But you have to find some way to talk and relate, and that's what we do on the ride. I suffer. I have dreams I can't overcome from my time in the Middle East. I have friends who can't sleep, period. Unfortunately, I have friends who just couldn't fight anymore. So, we try and do everything we can for these people and we'll continue fighting."
Coming back to Plum Coulee Fire Department's commitment to the Rolling Barrage PTSD Foundation, Fehr stressed it is a true blessing to have an organization that helps in this way.
"We might not have done the same things, but everybody does it on an individual basis, and whatever they go through affects everybody differently," said Fehr. "But we know there is support out there, and if we can help grow that support, it's an honour for us to take part knowing when there is something, and hopefully nothing, but when things do happen, we know there's support out there."
- With files from Candace Derksen -
