Our February meeting was a great way to start the year and entertainer “Janice” was a big hit!
The members of the Bergen County Firemen’s Home Association met for the first of our annual meeting on the afternoon of February 19th, 2023. Members had come from all over Bergen County to attend the meeting.
We discussed our Calendar for the year of events planned. We discussed the recent fundraiser that the organized for much needed funds for the organization to run the upcoming barbecue in June and the Christmas Party in December (can you believe that is in nine months?).
The Members’ of the Bergen County Firemen’s Home Association at the June Barbecue in June 2022.
Our Head of Fundraising reported that the fund drive is going well. We are actually ahead in fundraising so far and many departments have been very generous. There are still some departments that have never given to the organization in the past but we will try to reach out to them.
We have to update our Bylaws and we gave our organizations accounts so far. The members were throwing ideas around for the Christmas Party but we tabled the discussion for now but nine months will go very fast.
We discussed upcoming events and we will be having two Summer barbecues since it was such a success last year. We will also be celebrating the birthday of one of our members who is turning 100. His department, The Maywood NJ Fire Department will be planning his party along with us and the NJ State Firemen’s Home. We are looking for a good crowd for this event.
After the meeting was over, we joined the residents in the Recreation Room for this month’s entertainer, singer Janice, who entertained the residents for the afternoon.
Singer “Janice” entertained the residents of the NJ State Firemen’s Home that afternoon.
Please contribute to our fundraising efforts at the Bergen County Firemen’s Home Association.
The members of the Bergen County Firemen’s Home Association met at the Harrington Park Fire House to start the stuffing of the envelopes to start the fundraising efforts of the organization. Over coffee and doughnuts, we stuffed envelopes for all the fire companies in Bergen County, NJ.
Monies raised by the fundraiser help pay for entertainment, refreshments, the food for the barbecue, gifts to the residents and for items that residents might need.
The Summer Barbecue at the NJ Firemen’s Home in August 2022
To all our fellow firefighters, please be on the lookout for our mailers. Your department’s donation to the organization goes a long way.
The members at the Annual Christmas Party in December 2022
If you are interested in becoming a member of the Bergen County Firemen’s Home Association, please attend one of our meetings at the Boonton Firemen’s Home in Boonton, NJ. Our meetings are February 19th, April 16th, June 10th, August 5th, October 15th and December 3rd of 2023.
The Naylis Family entertaining the residents at Christmas time
Consider joining or donating to the Bergen County Firemen’s Home Association. It helps tremendously.
The members of the Bergen County Firemen’s Home Association met at the Harrington Park Fire House to start the stuffing of the envelopes to start the fundraising efforts of the organization. Monies raised by the fundraiser help pay for entertainment, refreshments, the food for the barbecue, gifts to the residents and for items that residents might need.
The members at the annual breakfast in November at the Wyckoff Fire Department
To all our fellow fire fighters, please be on the lookout for our mailers. Your department’s donation to the organization goes a long way.
Members and their guests enjoying themselves at the August 2021 Barbecue
If you are interested in becoming a member of the Bergen County Firemen’s Home Association, please attend one of our meetings at the Boonton Firemen’s Home in Boonton, NJ. Our meetings are on February 20th, April 10th, June 12th, August 21st, October 16th and December 4th in 2022.
Serving our fellow Brothers at the NJ Firemen’s Home at our Jersey Mike’s lunch that we sponsored at the home.
Let’s bring a smile to our fellow fire fighters who have served their time to the State of New Jersey!
Even though we just visited to spread some good cheer the residents knew how much we care about them!
It really hurt us as members that we had to cancel our Annual Christmas Party and Meeting for the men at the NJ Firemen’s Home but with COVID and current rules set by the State of New Jersey, it made it impossible to hold the party that we have held every year.
Instead, we had a Jersey Mike’s lunch for the residents that was very popular last month. We paid for the sandwiches to come in as a treat to the residents and we were told at our breakfast meeting last month that it was very popular. We plan on holding another one in the Spring.
The Staff at Jersey Mike’s delivering lunch to the residents
Last week, we dropped off the residents Christmas presents which were a monogrammed shirt, which were very popular with the residents and most could not help showing of their shirts the next day.
BCFHA Member George Steger giving the thumbs up at the Jersey Mike’s lunch
On the day of what would have been the party, President George Heflich and Vice-President Justin Watrel, showed up during the Christmas Bingo, to spread some Christmas cheer to the residents. President Heflich walked around the home and wished the residents a good holiday and Vice-President Watrel made a short speech at the beginning of the Christmas Bingo wishing our fellow Brothers a safe and Merry Christmas and hoped the everyone enjoyed their presents. All the residents who attended seemed touched by the gesture.
Both President Heflich and Vice-President Watrel did not stay too long as the rules of the home gave us only about one to two hours to visit but still, we were able to spread some Christmas good cheer to the residents.
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year from the Members of the Bergen County Firemen’s Home Association!
The Membership of the Bergen County Firemen’s Home Association in 2018Santa spreading good cheer at the 2019 Christmas Party
To all Bergen County Fire Fighters, think about joining the Bergen County Fireman’s Home Association and helping our fellow fire fighters not feel forgotten.
Hello from the Members of the Bergen County Firemen’s Home Association
The 2018 Christmas Party at the Boonton Firemen’s Home
Who are We?
The members of the Bergen County Firemen’s Home are a group of Active and Retired Firefighter from towns all over Bergen County. The organizations purpose is promote activities and comradery at the Boonton Firemen’s Home in Boonton, NJ for fire fighters from all over the great State of New Jersey. Check out our Blog on WordPress.com at BCFHA@Wordpress.com.
Our Founding:
The New Jersey Firemen’s Home was established in 1898 and is believed to be one of only two such institutions in the country, with the other being in New York State. The Bergen County Firemen’s Home Association was created in 1954.
Our Mission:
The Mission of the organization is to provide entertainment, gifts to the residents and most important provide support for the guests living at the home. The support includes items and equipment needed by guests who are not able to afford them. Donations for these goals come mostly through fire department and exempts association donations as well as bequests in memory of a loved one. The group normally travels to the home six times a year to entertain residents. During the annual Christmas party each resident receives a gift and our group tries to comply with a list provided by the former firefighters.
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The August 2019 Meeting & Entertainment
Donating to the Organization:
In the past, the organization has provided the home with air conditioners, beds, medical equipment, outside chairs and a gazebo. Anyone interested in donating to the group can do so by sending a check made payable to the ‘Bergen County Firemen’s Home Association’, c/o Jeff Parma, 277 Harriot Avenue, Harrington Park, NJ 07640. If you need to contact the organization, please contact President George Heflich Sr. at BGH291@aol.com.
Your Support is always appreciated!
Brother Bob Ordway at our Annual June Barbecue at the Firemen’s Home
Donating to The Bergen County Firemen’s Home is easy. Please fill out the form below and send it in to us. Your donation is tax deductible and helps support all the programming and projects that the organization is currently working on at the Boonton Firemen’s Home.
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The Members of the Bergen County Firemen’s Home
Get to know the Brothers of the Bergen County Firemen’s Association
The residents of the New Jersey Firemen’s Home enjoying their Christmas presents in 2020.
Originally posted on mywalkinmanhattan: Today is the 19th anniversary of 9/11. We just got back from the 9/11 Memorial for Hasbrouck Heights, NJ and it still reminds me of that morning when I was still living in California. I still can’t believe that 19 years have gone by in the blink of an eye. I…
Dedicated to all those displaced New Yorkers and Easterners who were affected by 9/11.
Today is the 19th anniversary of 9/11. We just got back from the 9/11 Memorial for Hasbrouck Heights, NJ and it still reminds me of that morning when I was still living in California. I still can’t believe that 19 years have gone by in the blink of an eye.
I have students who were not even born when it happened or I have to hear “I was in elementary school when that occurred’. That is surreal for me. Everyone generation has their moment. Our’s was 9/11.
In memory of that day I have enclosed the beginning of my novel “Firehouse 101” and the events that lead the main character, Alex Livingston, to return to New York City. This book can be found on the IUniverse.com website and can be purchased through that site, Barnes & Nobel, Amazon.com or any online book store.
When I was in Cape May, NJ recently and came across the Cape May Fire Department Museum when walking around the town. It is interesting little museum that tells the history of the Cape May Fire Department.
The museum showcases the history Cape May Fire Department since its creation in the late 1880’s. There have been some serious fires over the years that have destroyed sections of the Cape May resort community. Some of the resorts oldest and grandest hotels that were made of wood have been leveled by spectacular fires. The department has framed the articles around the building.
The inside of the Cape May Museum
There is also large collection of patches from fire departments all over the…
The Firefighting Museum of Dutchess County (Dutchess County Firefighting Museum) right now is a work in progress for the organization. It is a traveling museum until a new home is built for it so all the objects in the collection are in storage. They come out when members of the museum’s organization can mount the show of their objects. I met up with them at the Dutchess County Fair in 2019. The picture above is what the organization has proposed as their new building. At this writing, the Dutchess County Fairgrounds Management has proposed to build them a new building on the Fair Grounds with the stipulation that it remain open when the fair grounds are being used and closed when they are not being used.
This was a very enlightening article by BCFHA member Glenn Corbett
Botched Tribute in Light is the final ‘breach of trust’ for a group of 9/11 victims’ kin
By Glenn Corbett
(We want to thank BCFHA member Glenn Corbett for this enlightening article)
With the anniversary of the September 11th attacks just weeks away, the 9/11 Memorial & Museum again found itself in the headlines around the world. This time it was for shamefully canceling the annual ‘Tribute in Light’ display that shines skyward above Ground Zero and prohibiting the live reading of nearly 3000 victims names in the daytime ceremony.
The World Trade Center site
Only after enormous public pressure and the actions of Frank Siller, CEO of the Tunnel to Tower Foundation, which vowed to stage the ‘Tribute in Light’ itself, did the 9/11 Memorial & Museum flip-flop and agree to put on the iconic nighttime display. But there still will be separate, simultaneous name readings-the 9/11 Memorial’s ceremony with pre-recorded audio of name readings and the Siller Foundation’s live reading by family nearby.
The 9/11 Memorial Lights that shine in lower Manhattan
Memorial officials blame the COVID pandemic both cutbacks, saying they didn’t want to spread the virus. The public did not buy it-they knew that both be done safely. Money is the heart of these disgraceful decisions. Chaired by ex-Mayor Micheal Bloomberg, the most expensive memorial and museum ever constructed, at a cost of over $800 million, is also the most costly to operate.
This incredibly embarrassing situation has exposed the absurdity of the organization’s $80 million annual budget. The COVID-related closure of the 9/11 Museum in March cut off its supply of cash, causing a $45 million deficit and forcing management to lay off 148 employees and furlough 51 out of a total 337. Yet the highly compensated senior leadership remains in place, including President and CEO Alice Greenwald, who was paid $572,198 in salary and benefits in 2018, the latest tax filings show. Officials in June said she took a 15% pay cut after the museum closed due to COVID-19. Meanwhile, the organization has been taking federal handouts.
The 9/11 Memorial & Museum
The Memorial & Museum has collected not only $4.6 million in the federal Paycheck Protection Program for COVID relief but is also set to receive an additional $2 million grant awarded by the Department of Interior. Yet the privately run nonprofit couldn’t find the $500,000 it needed to pay for the ‘Tribute in Light’. They couldn’t perform their two most basic responsibilities for the 9/11 anniversary.
This breach of trust is not new to many 9/11 families. For years, our group of 9/11 parents and families of firefighters and WTC victims have spoken out against many improprieties at the memorial and museum, starting with a gift shop that hawked 9/11 souvenirs, including jewelry, T-shirts, hats, dishes and a tacky cheese plate with stars marking the sites of the attacks.
It’s unconscionable that a memorial security guard in 2016 demanded that a group of North Carolina middle-schoolers stop singing our national anthem on the eight acre site, which flies only two American flags. They were told they needed to apply for a permit and pay a $35 fee before they could sing “The Star Spangled Banner”!
In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, many 9/11 families had hoped for a reverential, respectful and patriotic memorial that honored the victims, not the current urban park in which tourists take thumbs-up selfies, children run about and local office workers wolf down their lunches while studying their smartphones.
We had hoped for a memorial where victims were the focus, not two massive waterfalls that memorialized the twin towers. We had hoped that informational signage would be placed around the plaza detailing what happened that day, not having to pay $24 to enter the 9/11 Museum to learn about the historic events.
Also of great importance to many 9/11 families is the issue of the unidentified human remains; 40% if the families have never received any remnants of their loved ones. The 94% of families who responded to our survey in 2012 said they wished that all unclaimed remains be placed above the ground in a repository akin to Arlington National Cemetery’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. This request was ignored and the remains were stored behind a wall in the basement of the museum, 70 feet below the plaza and a $24 ticket away (Victim relatives do not have to pay the entry free but friends and the general public must do so. During the COVID shutdown, no one had access).
Our group has continuously advocated for the National Park Service to assume operational control and management of the 9/11 above ground memorial and plaza at Ground Zero. The federal agency runs our most important national landmarks and sites, including Gettysburg, Valley Forge and the Oklahoma City bombing memorial. Under our proposal, the separate underground museum would continue to be run privately by the existing organization.
We call on President Trump and our New York congressional delegation to bring the 9/11 Memorial plaza under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service to bring professionalism , fiscal controls, patriotism, honor and respect to this revered site.
*Glenn P. Corbett is a former assistant fire chief in Waldwick, NJ, Associate Professor of Fire Science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and an advisor to the 9/11 Parents and Families of Firefighter and WTC victims.
He is also a long time member of the Bergen County Firemen’s Association.
It is not all the time one of the Members of the Bergen County Firemen’s Home celebrates 60 years in his fire department. Congratulations fellow brother and Ex-Chief Frank Glucker of the Hillsdale Fire Department for his 60 years of dedicated loyalty to the fire service.
Bergen County Firemen’s Home Association member Frank Glucker Celebrates 60 years on the Hillsdale Fire Department
By Justin Watrel and Frank Glucker
Having started a surveying business the year before, Hillsdale Fire Department fire fighter and Ex-Chief Frank Glucker was working late in the office. He received a phone call from his next door neighbor who said, “Your wife thinks you should come home. There has been a small fire in your house.”
“A frayed lamp cord in my daughter’s bedroom is how I joined the Hillsdale Fire Department,” says Fire Fighter Frank Glucker. “The cord set fire to a bedspread on my daughter’s bed and she yelled to my wife that it was on fire. So the two of them left the house and ran next door and called the fire department.”
Both the Chief and the Assistant Fire Chief of the Hillsdale Fire Department were at the firehouse at the time and immediately responded with the Department. After the fire was put out, they toured the house with him to be sure everything was okay. He was so impressed by the professionalism that he stopped by the Hillsdale Fire Department that weekend to drop off a donation.
“When I arrived at the firehouse with the donation, an Ex-chief was there with a Captain on the department in front of the firehouse hosing down the apron. After I dropped off the donation, the Captain asked me if I wanted to join the Department. I joined the Hillsdale Fire Department when I was 34 years old,” FF Glucker explained. It was October 27th, 1959.
Over the years with the Department, he has held so many jobs within the Department they are too numerous to list them all. He started out as the Secretary of the Hose Company and then Drillmaster in 1962. He then moved on to be a Driver of the apparatus from 1964 until 1981 and Mechanic of the equipment starting in 1966.
He moved into an Officer position in 1966 when he became the Third Lieutenant of the Hose Company, then Second Lieutenant in 1969, First Lieutenant in 1970, Captain in 1971. He then moved to Assistant Chief in 1972 and finally served as Chief of the Department in 1973.
Ex-Chief Glucker receiving his Honors at the Hillsdale Fire Department
When he was Chief, he was in command of the largest event ever held by the Department. A Brownie scout, selling cookies went missing. For two days, the entire Pascack Valley Mutual Aid combed every yard in the town looking for her. The search even covered additional towns. Her body was eventually found at Bear Mountain. “It was a tough moment for us,” he said.
On a higher note, he enjoyed his time as Chief of the Hillsdale Fire Department. “There was a real comradery in our Department at the time and we had a good time. We won ‘Best Overall Apparatus’ (New Jersey/New York) in the Parade that year.”
Ex-Chief Glucker has held many positions over the years. He served as President of the Hillsdale Exempt Firemen’s Association from 1976-1977 and President of the Department from 1980-81 and has served as Exempt Secretary since 1991. He has been active in the Pascack Valley Mutual Aid Association becoming President in 1984 and had served as Secretary for several years. He was Hillsdale ‘Fireman of the Year’ in 1989.
Ex-Chief Frank Glucker (Middle) celebrates 60 years with the Hillsdale Fire Department in Hillsdale, NJ.
Another program that he worked on with other members of the Department was the Junior Cadet Program which has been revived in recent years. “We had a young officer who really enjoyed working in the program and he planned the meetings and drills for the members. Many of these members have moved up to regular firefighters and have strengthened our Department.”
Other ways that he has helped the Fire Service was in 1984 when he got involved with the Wildwood Parade during the Convention. “The local announcer knew nothing about the fire service so I volunteered to assist him with the parade the next year. I did this for more than seventeen years and after twelve years of announcing the parade, the local announcer was unable to continue so I became the host. After five years, we suggested an interview show and we started “Firemen Speak” in 1989 in which I hosted,” said Ex-Chief Glucker.
“The Rudy Apeld Service Award’ of the New Jersey and New York Firemen’s Association was started when I realized that many firefighters were not recognized for their service in reaching out to their community. This award goes to those who were never a hero but who reached out through their Mutual Aid Groups, Fire Service Organizations and the fire service. They get involved with their churches, scouts, Little League and other municipal organizations. It has been a big success,” he explained.
“In 1998, I got active in the New Jersey State Firemen’s Exempt Organization and since 2004 I have been one of the Executive members. We meet all over the State and strive to represent the fire fighters as no other organization can,” says FF Glucker.
When asked how all this time on the Department affected his family life, he said that he was lucky that everyone in his family was so supportive. “My wife of 51 years really loved the Department and the other members. She served as the President of the Ladies Auxiliary and my daughters would do errands when needed. One of them married a firefighter from the Department. I had set it up as a blind date for a Department Dinner and they ended up marrying,” he explained.
Asked how his keeps going at 95, FF Glucker noted that, “I work out every day and get lots of exercise as a land surveyor. I eat right and keep myself active. I am always at meetings. I also like to learn new things within the Department and the Fire Service. I learn so much from other Departments that I visit. Meeting many interesting people and trying to keep a really good attitude keeps me going,” he said with pride.
“Even though there aren’t any of my original compatriots left in the Department, I try to have a good relationship with the younger members of my Department. We as a Department work well together and have since I started,” said Ex-Chief Glucker. “I have always enjoyed being a fireman.”
Thank you Fire Fighter Glucker for your years of continued service to the Hillsdale Fire Department and for your representation in the State of New Jersey.
Thank you Fire Fighter Glucker for your years of continued service to the Hillsdale Fire Department and for your representation in the State of New Jersey.
Ex-Chief Frank Glucker with 50 year members Bill Franklin on the left and George Wodowski on the right.
Special Note: The pictures are the courtesy of the Hillsdale Fire Department in Hillsdale,NJ.
The Bergen County Firemen's Home Association 