Nikki Rice wiped down face masks and handed flippers to the kids and adults decked out in scuba gear in the Blacksburg Aquatic Center’s pool last month.
She looked on as instructors from the Virginia State Police and other departments taught kids how to breathe underwater and make their way to the bottom of the pool. The activity was part of the Virginia Association of First Responders’ annual Youth Rescue Camp.
Rice wasn’t there in her official capacity as an emergency department nurse at Mary Washington Hospital in Fredericksburg, but as a volunteer. She and her younger brother, Devon Rice, are alumni of the camp.
They’ve been attending it for most of their lives.
They come from a family of first responders. Their dad is a retired federal firefighter, and he and most of the rest of the Rice family are “life members of the Fredericksburg Rescue Squad,” he said.
Mom Debbie Rice is also one of the organizers of the kids’ camp. Devon Rice, a student at Virginia Tech, comes back each year to volunteer for the camp, too.
About this story
Volunteer fire departments across our region are the first line of defense during emergencies for many communities, but they continue to grapple with declining volunteerism, inadequate resources and funding, and the changing nature of their work.
Cardinal News is amplifying potential solutions to these problems in a month-long project; check out our project page here to follow along.
Many people who pursue careers in emergency services or volunteer for their local rescue squads come from families that have a history of it.
While it can be “multigenerational,” as in the Rice family, new recruits also might have had early experiences with emergency services personally that had an impact on them and inspired them to go down that path, said Wesley Melson, a training coordinator for the Fredericksburg Rescue Squad and lead instructor for the Virginia Association of First Responders.
But for kids who don’t have any exposure to these careers or opportunities — who don’t know that the Virginia State Police has a dive team or that some SWAT teams have paramedics or that there are firefighters who fight wildfires — the rescue camp aims to expose them to these experiences.
“Each year on the first day of camp, everybody goes around and says what their name is, and if they’re associated with a rescue squad or fire station,” Devon Rice said. “Some kids shy out or just straight up don’t remember, but also every year we get students, roughly, that don’t have an affiliation at all — they’re showing up and it’s their first time doing anything like this.”
That’s the goal, Melson said.
Kids learn from what they see.
When preparing children for the workforce, this often means exposing them to jobs they might not have any knowledge of or experience with otherwise.
And across the state, fire and rescue departments are competing for a shrinking pool of applicants or willing volunteers.
Cash-strapped rural communities often lack the funds to offer recruitment bonuses or expanded training programs, or the staff for dedicated public awareness campaigns that wealthier communities can afford — and many rural communities rely on volunteers to make these calls.
This isn’t just a Virginia problem. Across the country, volunteer fire services are losing thousands of volunteers a year, according to the National Fire Protection Association.
While schools and universities are exploring efforts to train high school students and get them certified before they graduate, the VAFR is trying to reach students even earlier and get them at least interested in the idea of a career in emergency services.
Last month, VAFR hosted the three-day camp for kids ages 8 to 16 on Virginia Tech’s campus in Blacksburg. The camp, which has taken place every year for more than two decades, coincided with the organization’s training symposium that brought firefighters and EMTs together from across the state.
More than 40 students got to scuba dive at the Blacksburg Aquatic Center and rappel down the side of Lane Stadium. They heard from the Virginia Department of Forestry and learned first aid skills and, depending on their age, how to perform CPR.
First responder camps
Other law enforcement or fire and rescue agencies in Virginia offer similar first responder camps, including Camp R.I.T and the Future First Responders Camp in Roanoke County, the Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office Public Safety Discovery Camp and the Amherst County Sheriff’s Office’s First Responders Camp.
Learn more about the Virginia Association of First Responders here and check your local area for similar opportunities for kids.
Though the camp focuses on being fun for the students, it also serves a vital role in inspiring the next generation of emergency responders.
“We believe that education is the best investment we can make into the future of public safety,” Melson said. “At this point in time, hundreds of kids have gone through that program, and we’re beginning to see now those kids entering the workforce as firefighters and paramedics and nurses and doctors and law enforcement officers.”
VAFR also supports students interested in careers in emergency services or who are the children of first responders with scholarships for college or training after school.
Devon Rice and his sister both were recipients of such scholarships. Though he volunteers every year at camp, he decided not to go into the family business. Instead, he’s studying aerospace engineering, inspired by a rocket launch he caught a glimpse of in Stafford as a child.
One of the campers’ scuba diving instructors this year, Clay Overholt, is a special agent with Virginia State Police and teaches a wide array of diving courses.
Over the course of his career, he has uncovered evidence or searched for missing people on dives as well as trained dozens of other divers.
He was just one professional who shared his experience with the campers.
After each activity, Nikki Rice laughed, the campers would say, “I want to be that.”
Earlier that morning in Blacksburg, after hearing from the Forestry Department, many campers proclaimed they wanted to be wildland firefighters.
There’s no way of measuring how many campers go on to pursue careers in emergency services. Some campers come for a year, but many return every year until they’re old enough to serve as counselors or volunteers. Since many do come from families with backgrounds in public service, they might not pinpoint the camp as their sole inspiration for their future careers.
But organizers say they see the impact it has and are optimistic about both the growth of the camp and the future of emergency services.
“I’ve been doing this myself for about 23 years, and I see these children grow up, and they’re police officers, nurses, firefighters, paramedics,” said Gail Rice, another organizer of the camp but no relation to Devon or Nikki Rice. “I think if you start at a young age, you just, you grow with it.”
