MCFD escorts pink fire trucks into town to help fight cancer

MASON CITY – The Mason City Fire Department escorted the Guardians of the Ribbon, Pink Heals 2012 Tour Fire Engines into Mason City Thursday afternoon at about 3:15 PM. They pulled into the fire station and were there until 8:00 pm.

Mason City was 1 of 57 stops the Guardians are making across the United States for their 2012 Summer/Fall Tour. During the time they were here, people could see and sign the pink Fire Engine trucks. The other Iowa cities that they stopped at were Cedar Rapids, Bettendorf, Riverdale and West Burlington earlier this month.

John Rhywe from Ponca City, OK and Dewayne Eastman from North Carolina were dressed in the entire pink Fire Fighter apparel. They headed out, with Shannon Furst, Organizer of the event, to give personal visits and flowers to area cancer patients.

Dave Graybill, founder and spokesperson for the Guardians, states in their brochure “The program is about our community, our family, our neighbors, our leaders and how it will help bring us back together to focus on our own people, rather than on promises that were never kept, opportunities that were lost, and things that might have been. Pink will heal as long as we do it in service to our women and what they mean to us in our communities, not just because they are sick or stricken with cancer. Because if we use illness as the sole motivation for action, once the sickness is gone, so is our cause for coming together.”

“We drive pink fire trucks and pink police cars across American bringing the ‘Cares Enough to Wear Pink’ and Pink Heals Movement to a city near you! We simply provide a program for your community leaders and tax based organizations to adopt, helping them fundraiser for people rather than causes. We focus our labor of love on the women of this country and wage war on anything that may harm her, starting with cancer!”

“We do not take donations,” said Graybill. The sales of our shirts keep the fire trucks on their mission of love and hope.

Why pink and why fire trucks?

“I was once a fire fighter, fire trucks and pink make people happy, makes people smile and it’s the color of love. You can’t just wear the color because you are sick, you have to wear the color based on love. Start celebrating on who you are as a woman.”