The Tienmu-based Taipei Volunteer Fire Department, a group of foreign nationals who raise funds for charitable causes, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, a spokesman for the group said yesterday.
Although the group does not participate in actual fire fighting, it has been active in organizing charity drives that have contributed significantly to the community, with the underprivileged receiving special attention.
The group meets on the first Friday evening of each month to discuss new initiatives, said chairman Adam McMillan, an American working at a software engineering company.
Group members, mostly foreign nationals living in the Tienmu area, receive fire fighting training from the Taipei City Fire Department every six months, McMillan said.
One of the major appeals that the group launched in recent years was for the families of deceased fire fighters, he said.
The group has also launched a large number of other activities to support welfare organizations, he said.
One of these was the 2003 Olympic Mud-wrestling championship, which was held in Tienmu last October.
The activity raised more than NT$400,000 for St. Anne's Home, a facility for orphaned and abandoned children in Taipei.
Currently, the group has 18 members who hail from four continents, McMillan said.
The members' professions are as diverse as their nationalities -- they include teachers, technicians, businessmen and other professionals, he said.
Wang Chao-yang, 63, one of the few Taiwanese members of the group, joined in 1964 while it was meeting at a restaurant owned by his father. Three years ago, when Wang opened his own pub on Zhongyi Street in Tienmu, the group moved its monthly meetings there.
The organization also has a unique object in its possession, McMillan said.
In 1956, when former Philippine president Ramon Magsaysay visited Taipei, he was impressed by their organization and decided to give the group a fire alarm bell as a souvenir.
The bell, now adorned with more than 300 signatures of past and present group members, is stored in a fire fighting museum in Neihu, McMillan said.
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