BY DAN NEWMAN
Staff Writer
HAZLET – John Beslanovitz can’t exactly remember when he started his fundraising efforts, but he knows that when the idea did strike him a few years ago, he had plenty of help.
“We always had a strong group of volunteers, and so when we went around looking for donations to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital [in Memphis, Tenn.], we had so many people out there with those buckets looking to do what they could.”
As time has gone on though, Beslanovitz, a former fire chief in West Keansburg in the mid-1980s and the current fire official in Hazlet, says that interest in the department has waned. That didn’t stop him and about 35 others on June 30 from spreading themselves out along Route 36 and some parts of Route 35 in an effort to raise money for three hospitals. After just four hours, approximately $3,300 was raised, surpassing the initial goal of $3,000.
“It just used to be that we’d raise money for St. Jude, but in recent years we have also brought in money for The Burn Center at Saint Barnabas [Livingston] and the Deborah Heart and Lung Center in Browns Mills [Burlington County],” Beslanovitz said. “We feel it’s very important to raise money for those two organizations because so many firefighters have had to go to these places to deal with their injuries in the past, especially The Burn Center.”
Initially, when the yearly fundraising drives commenced, Beslanovitz was only raising money for people with muscular dystrophy but then realized he could do more.
“I thought that by spreading the money around, more people could be helped, and so I’m glad we started to include the other places as well,” Beslanovitz said.
Even with the reduction in volunteers, Beslanovitz said that he won’t be stopping anytime soon with the fundraising drives and that he is always looking to better the previous year’s totals.
“We had plenty of fire trucks up and down Route 36 and it also helped that we had beautiful day as well,” Beslanovitz said. “People were more than willing to help out. It’s tough work but we do enjoy it each year, and it’s a great for us to give back to places that are always supportive of firefighters, and not just the ones in our town. Each year, we all get a good feeling from participating in something like this.”