Firetruck Restored by Wings of Hope

On one of my Fridays at Wings of Hope I happened to have my camera with me and I captured this old firetruck in our parking lot. At Wings of Hope you learn not to be surprised at anything you see. Old cars, old airplanes and even old firetrucks somehow can be put to good use in one form or another.

I didn't know what the story was that went with this truck, I just thought it was a neat old truck that I wanted some pictures of. But today I stumbled upon the final chapter of the story. I call it a Cinderella Story where the ugly step-sister gets a make over from her Fairy Godmother and gets to go to the ball after all.

Restored and Ready for the Ball

Chesterfield charity sending old firetruck to Ecuador

BY MARGARET GILLERMAN • mgillerman@post-dispatch.com > 314-725-6758 | Posted: Wednesday, April 20, 2011 12:01 am

CHESTERFIELD • In the heart of the Amazon rain forest, a small village of Shuar Indians waits for a special delivery from St. Louis.

It will arrive this summer after a long and involved land and sea journey from suburban Chesterfield, about 5,000 miles away.

The gift is a bright red firetruck. The vehicle, a restored 1956 pumper, will have Spanish lettering saying: "Firemen of the City of Arajuno, donated by Wings of Hope." The last 18 hours of the pumper's journey will be through the jungle on bumpy paths or no paths at all. If it rains, the mud is likely to make the route nearly impassable.

Wings of Hope Inc., the Chesterfield-based global charity that has been nominated this year for a Nobel Peace Prize, is bringing the fire pumper to Arajuno. The charity began 49 years ago with a mission to get medicine and medical care to the world's neediest people.

Its mission has expanded to include other types of aid. That includes the fire pumper, which is not well suited for urban or suburban departments but is a good fit for an area without running water, like Arajuno.

The pumper is able to suck water from a pond or stream, store it in a tank, and transport it to a fire scene.

"This is a big deal for Arajuno," said Doug Clements, president of Wings of Hope. "They don't have electricity. Everyone uses candles and oil lights and they have quite a lot of fires. Many of the people live in thatched huts and have no phone service, not even cells."

The remote area is on the Arajuno River in the Amazon basin on the other side of the Andes from the Ecuadoran coast.

The pumper was donated to the charity by Jeff and Laurie Boone, Steve and Marianne Spencer, and Dan and Julie Fels, all of west St. Louis County. They had acquired it from the small town of Rector, Ark.

The Monarch Fire Protection District donated weeks of work to overhaul the pumper's brakes and rebuild its pumps.

Dave Mungenast Automotive Family donated several weeks of sheet metal work and painted the pumper its signature bright red. Gloria Wise, a graphic artist volunteer, created lettering to go on the truck.

About 2,000 people live in Arajuno and the nearby rainforest. Most of the people there, Shuar and Quechua peoples, fish and harvest papayas and pineapples. They are learning new skills through various education programs.

"Arajuno has five streets like an old western town," Clements said.

Clements and Michele Rutledge, vice president of Wings of Hope, have traveled up the area's rivers in dugout canoes.About two months ago, Wings of Hope, working with the local people, completed a medical clinic for Arajuno.

"We're also building a new runway so we can fly in and out with supplies and medicine," Clements said. "We will be able to use our plane to get people in other villages to and from the health clinic."

Wings operates 154 bases in 45 countries and has 19 volunteers in eastern Ecuador.

"A lot of people forget that in a lot of rural areas there's not running city water," Clements said. "Equipment like this is used extensively in remote parts of the world."

A LONG TRIP

To get the pumper to Arajuno, two veteran Wings volunteers — most likely Gene Ray and Don Buxbaum — first will drive it to Jacksonville, Fla. There, it will be loaded onto an ocean freighter and taken through the Panama Canal to Guayaquil, Ecuador. That journey will take three weeks.

The city of Arajuno will send drivers to pick up the pumper, then take it home over the Andes and through a jungle. Clements predicted that trip will take at least three days. Rutledge said: "Those 'roads' will rattle the teeth right out of your head. Calling it a trail is too nice." (She got stuck in mud on one path in a village in the Amazon basin and the mud tore off her shoe.)

Wings of Hope, which has obtained donations to finance the transportation of the pumper, won't be sending it for at least 30 days.

"We want to drive it around here until we're satisfied," Clements said. "We don't want to ship it 5,000 miles and not have it work."

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