Politics & Government
NY Daily News: Port Chester Immigrants Fill the Ranks of Volunteer Fire Dept.
While other towns are desperate for volunteer firefighters, Port Chester has seen a growth in people willing to volunteer their time to helping others, the New York Daily News reports.
The Port Chester fire department is one of few in New York state that is not experiencing a worrisome lack of volunteers, but is in fact seeing the opposite, The New York Daily News' Erica Pearson reported Wednesday.
The volunteer ranks that were once filled with Italian and Irish immigrants are now filled with Peruvian, Mexican and Ecuadorian immigrants, according to the story.
Councilman Luis Marino, the first Latino to hold office in Port Chester, first joined the volunteer firefighters in 1997 and now recruits younger men to join, Pearson reports. She quotes Marino:
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“At the beginning, it was tough. But once I got into the department I proved who I am,” said Marino, who was born in Peru and works as a maintenance man. “It’s like anything else. After awhile, it is really, really like family. We are firefighter brothers.”
Read the full Daily News article here.
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