Volunteer firefighters employed by John Deere can leave work to respond to an emergency call
Writing for the NVFC
Do you remember when your employer used to let you leave work to run calls? Yeah, didn’t think so. That’s because most of those practices ended decades ago. And with fewer volunteer firefighters living and working in the same community, there’s less demand for it.
Yet one company is turning back that clock and making it easier for volunteer firefighters who do live where they work to punch out long enough to turn out for a 911 call.
The perk, which falls under John Deere’s Power for Good program, lets workers who are volunteer firefighters leave work to respond to calls. They can also come in late if they were on an early morning call. While many of the Deere production workers are located in more rural communities, the option is open to all Deere employees around the globe.
Power for Good is operated by John Deere’s charitable arm, the Deere Foundation. The company is the main financial contributor to the foundation.
It’s a perk that means something to its employees.
Jake Smith has been a volunteer firefighter for nearly 30 years and a product development specialist for John Deere for the past five years. Being available for his community is critical to why he continues to volunteer.
“What if there was a call and nobody showed up?” Smith asked.
Glenn Pope is a chief product verification and validation engineer at Deere who also serves as a lieutenant and medical officer for the Greene Township Fire Protection District in Viola, Illinois.
“When I first got married,” Pope said, “we had an elderly neighbor next door, just the nicest guy, and I found myself wondering about what if something happened. It wasn’t a very hard stretch for me to say, ‘What would I do for Bill?’”
Like most volunteer firefighters, Deere employees understand what level of personal sacrifice is needed and why that sacrifice is so important to the community.
Deere, apparently, gets it too. This is no small sacrifice for a company bound by tight production schedules and a specialized workforce. When workers leave their post to fight a fire, production slows.
Although Deere does not pay its volunteer firefighters for their time away from the job, employees can earn money for the fire department for the number of hours they volunteer. Employees who volunteer their time for a recognized 501(c)(3) organization — such as a volunteer fire department — can log those hours and designate a charitable organization. The Deere Foundation gives money to those organizations based on the hours employees volunteer.
In fact, employees do not have to allocate the money they earn to the group they volunteer for. That means employees who are not volunteer firefighters who donate their time to another group, can direct those earnings to a volunteer fire department.
In 2021, the Foundation pledged to spend $200 million over the next 10 years — $50 million is set aside for this volunteer program. Volunteer firefighting has consistently logged the most hours by Deere employees when compared with other volunteering outlets.
In 2022, Deere employees clocked more than 13,000 hours across five states, which led to nearly $224,000 donated. This made Fire Protection one of the top categories by hours recorded across the company globally. And all those hours were recorded by only 79 of the company’s more than 82,000 employees.
“We know we have more employees providing this kind of tremendous community support,” Nate Clark, global director for corporate social responsibility, said. “So the goal becomes how do we get more people to understand and take advantage of the benefits that Power for Good can provide? We know more volunteer firefighters are needed all over the United States and beyond.”
While not part of the volunteer program, Deere funded a full-length documentary movie that explores the life of volunteer firefighters around the country. The film, “Odd Hours, No Pay, Cool Hat,” premiered April 22 at the Deere headquarters in conjunction with National Volunteer Week.
The film is available throughout the spring and early summer for local fire departments to host screenings to help increase recruitment. The nationwide release will take place this summer.
“A topic like this is part of our legacy because John Deere, as a person, was a firefighter,” Clark said. “And we’ve been protected by customers, dealers, colleagues, and loved ones who served as volunteer firefighters over our entire history.”
One way communities, or companies like John Deere, can do more to bolster the ranks of volunteer firefighters is to engage in recruiting programs such as the National Volunteer Fire Council’s (NVFC) Make Me A Firefighter campaign.
Make Me A Firefighter is a national volunteer firefighter and EMS recruitment campaign launched in 2015 by the NVFC to help departments reach new members. The NVFC has been awarded three SAFER grants from FEMA to conduct this nationwide campaign, which features a department portal filled with resources and tools for implementing a local recruitment campaign as well as a public web site at makemeafirefighter.org to allow potential volunteers to find local opportunities. Learn more, register for free, and post volunteer opportunities at http://portal.nvfc.org.
