Public Awareness & Community Outreach

The FDNY Foundation provides funding to the New York City Fire Department to educate, inform and involve the public in protecting life and property. The Department uses these funds to teach and educate ordinary citizens how to plan and prepare in the event of an emergency. With your generosity, the Foundation continues supporting the Department on these critical, life saving public safety initiatives.

  • Public Safety Announcements, such as the “Change Your Clock/Change Your Battery” print campaign and “Close the Door” TV campaign.
  • Fire Safety Education Unit (FSEU) Speakers Bureau and community outreach programs, where each year active and retired firefighters promote fire safety to thousands of schools, senior centers, fairs, shopping centers, businesses, community boards and neighborhoods groups.
  • FDNY Fire Zone Learning Center, a state-of-the-art public educational facility and retail store located in Rockefeller Center. You can stop in for some official gear. Or bring the whole family by for safety instruction from a firefighter-educator. The highlight of the trip is going through the “smoke house,” a realistic home setting with theatrical smoke where you can practice the escape tips you just learned.
  • Fire Zone on the Road mobile learning centers, a mocked down, split level version of a private home infused with theatrical smoke to simulate real life fire conditions. These Mobile Fire Safety Houses, also known as the Smoke House, enables the FSEU to travel anywhere so groups can practice effective fire evacuation techniques in a realistic setting.
  • Operation Fresh Battery Campaign, the largest single giveaway of smoke alarm batteries in New York City history.145, 000 batteries were given away for fire alarms and carbon monoxide detectors.
  • WABC/Channel 7’s annual Operation Save a Life campaign, which promotes the importance of working fire alarms and carbon monoxide detectors, and has distributed tens of thousands of free alarms to the needy.
  • Distribution of 200,000 smoke alarms for distribution to communities across the city, donated by Kidde, a UTC company, in partnership with “Operation Save a Life.”
  • FDNY EMS Community CPR Training Program.
  • FDNY Explorers Programs.

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