The Annual Rooftop Campout by the Fort MacMurray Firefighter Association has set a new record and beat previous year totals. This year the event raised $45,000 in spite of the fact that corporate donations were down. This is just another way that the local community has pulled together recently to help those in need. This year marked the fifth annual event, and the firefighters camped out for 100 hours on the roof of the Eagle Ridge Tim Hortons. The money raised during the event will go to local charities that include the Wood Buffalo Food Bank, the Fort MacMurray SPCA, the Boys and Girls Club, Unity House, and the Centre of Hope. FMFA charities committee member Scott Germain said “The exposure that we’ve got this year was incredible. We’ve had more people come to our pancake breakfast, three times more than we ever had before. Every night at East Village Pub where we had our events, it was quite the good turnout.”

The Fort MacMurray Firefighter Association holds the annual rooftop campout in order to help out local charities, and the event enjoys wide support from the public. Some of the donations that came in were touching and others were surprising. One 4 year old girl, the daughter of a local ER nurse, saved up her allowance for an entire year and donated an amount in excess of $200 with her saving. $15,000 was donated by local children’s charity Kids Forever. Germain said “That’s pretty touching,. We’d like to thank everyone who did come out, as well as people from the community, the public, as well as our sponsors or supporters. Especially the way the economy is this year … our corporate donations are way down, but obviously, we beat our record. That shows that the public donations (have) been increasing.”