Declining volunteerism, limited resources, and the changing nature of emergency calls all make it harder for volunteer fire departments to do their job in our rural landscape.
But volunteer fire departments across Southwest and Southside Virginia are trying out solutions to bolster the next generation of volunteers, streamline responses amid funding shortages, and ensure they have the best available tools to be there when their communities need them.
Cardinal News is shining a light on what’s going right — and how communities across our region can learn from it.
Reporting only on “bad news” does not accurately reflect our communities. We want to showcase how people are responding to their community’s problems, too.
What you told us
To kick off the project, we asked readers across Southwest and Southside Virginia what questions and thoughts they had about volunteer fire departments in their community. We also surveyed volunteer firefighters to hear what was most important to them. We learned:
- Volunteer emergency responders are determined to remain as the backbone of rural public safety in the face of burnout, limited funds and resources and recruitment challenges.
- Rural Virginians worry that an aging and shrinking volunteer base in a seemingly disconnected network of departments isn’t strong enough to save them when an emergency strikes.
- Volunteers often feel misunderstood by their neighbors, and neighbors have unanswered questions for their volunteers.
Cardinal News wants to close that gap.
If people believe volunteer fire departments are disappearing or being replaced, they may be less likely to join. In reality, volunteers remain a crucial part of emergency response, especially in rural areas.
Cody W.
Our mission
Cardinal News, an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization, exists to report the untold stories of Southwest and Southside Virginia, and strengthen the voices of the people in our communities who have been sidelined in the commonwealth’s political, economic and cultural conversations simply because of where they live.
That’s why we want to uplift the stories of rural communities working to figure out solutions to complex problems. Expect several stories between now and the end of the year from across our region where we pass the mic to folks on the ground who refuse to stand by and do nothing.
This work is supported by the Solutions Journalism Network, which trains reporters to go beyond a feel-good story and vet innovations in real-time.
Meet the reporters leading this project:
Emma Malinak joined Cardinal News in July 2025 as our Lynchburg reporter through Report for America, a national service program that seeks to strengthen local news in communities that need it most. She is a recent graduate of Washington and Lee University, where she studied journalism and English and was co-editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, The Ring-tum Phi. She grew up in rural southwestern Pennsylvania, but has reported across the east coast with internships at Pittsburgh Magazine and VTDigger, Vermont’s statewide nonprofit news organization. Email her at emma@cardinalnews.org.
Grace Mamon is a Virginia native who grew up in Fredericksburg and studied journalism at Washington & Lee University. She has been covering the City of Danville and Pittsylvania County for Cardinal News since 2022. She devotes particular attention to the economic rebirth of the Danville-Pittsylvania area, also reporting on its history and culture. Email her at grace@cardinalnews.org.
Join us
If you want to see more of this kind of reporting, you can support us in several ways: