San Antonio Valley, South Sonoma County, Petaluma, California

2nd ANNUAL "BUCKET BRIGADE" DETAILS

In January of 2007, Rincon Vally Fire Department was awarded the 2006/2007 1st Annual "Bucket Brigade" Trophy. In the 2007/2008 2nd Annual "Bucket Brigade", the trophy was snatched by Geyserville Fire Department with an astounding 77 donors! San Antonio joined the "Bucket Brigade" in this second year, collecting an impressive 28 pints to finish 8th in the competition. Thank you to all our San Antonio donors!!!

The "Bucket Brigade", headed by the Blood Bank of the Redwoods and sponsored by the local fire departments, is a competition between Fire Departments in Sonoma, Lake and Mendocino Counties. Winter is a difficult time of year for blood banks across the nation as usage increases and donors dwindle with the busy holiday season.

Since the Great London Fire of 1666, lines of townspeople created "brigades" with the community stretched out from the water source to the fire, passing buckets of water. In the winter of 2006, 35 departments pulled in 586 pints of blood. So you can see this program is an excellent opportunity to continue the brigade and extinguish blood shortages.

The following is the letter received from the Blood Bank of the Redwoods at the conclusion of the "Bucket Brigade". A hardy congradulations to all the participating fire departments and the over 700 donors for a job well done.