For the second year in a row, several members of the Rotary Club of Olds are participating in a convoy of surplus emergency and service vehicles heading down to Mexico.
In total, six vehicles are being taken down there. Included in that convoy is a 1993 fire truck deemed surplus by the Olds Fire Department, Town of Olds and Mountain View County.
The other five include another fire truck, two handi-buses, an ambulance and a school bus. All come from communities across the southern Alberta Rotary Club district, which extends from Ponoka south to the U.S. border.
A total of 12 people are making the journey — two in each vehicle. Four members of the Rotary Club of Olds are involved. Jim Crawford will be driving the fire truck and Barb Mciver will be driving a handi-bus.
The vehicles will be driven down to various communities in Mexico. The trip is expected to take seven days.
Two other local Rotarians — Mary Turner and Debby Crawford — are serving as ambassadors. Their job is to formally present the vehicles to Mexican officials.
The trip begins this Thursday. Plans call for the truck to be driven down to Lethbridge, from which point the convoy will begin its journey, with help from the Rotary Club of Lethbridge Sunrise.
Jim Crawford says the fire truck will be no problem to drive. All you need to operate it is a class 5 licence.
"It's a single axle vehicle. It's like driving a farmer grain truck. Hydraulic brakes, standard shift transmission," he says.
Members of the Rotary Club of Olds undertook the same project last year. However, one fire truck — the one going down this year — was unable to make the trip.
"There's quite a rigamarole in Mexico to get them OK'd to come into the country to stay," Jim Crawford says. "They have to prove and show that it's a sustainable project.
"Show that they've got funds, they've got — you know — a plan for it; how it's going to be maintained and where it's going to be kept. Who's going to operate it and is it going to be handled properly? And is there a need?"
Turner is happy to see the truck go down this year.
"It's been a project we've been working on for many years with the fire department and the town and with the county and it's neat to see it come together and we're pretty excited about the project," she says.
Fire Chief Justin Andrew is glad to know the truck will go where it can still be useful.
"Instead of selling it off at auction for very few dollars — if that — it was a great opportunity where it was still a very mechanically sound truck as far as the purpose where it could go, so it's nice to see it continue it's life as a fire truck, as opposed to being turned into — you know, makeshift scrap or something like that," he says.
