It gives you such respect
for what these folks do for us every single day.
Hey everybody, Dennis Leary here.
Welcome to the fifth annual Dennis Leary
FDNY firefighter challenge, and the first virtual one.
Normally people come down to the rock,
the training academy that the FDNY runs,
which is just an amazing facility.
And we put you in bunker gear,
and we team you up with celebrities
and actual FDNY firefighters,
and you get to go through the training.
I watched Rachael repel from the roof of
a building at the training academy.
Oh my God, oh my God.
If you haven't done it, it's really scary.
It's so scary, it's so scary you guys.
But it gives you such respect for what these folks do for
us every single day.
What they do is so critical and essential to our lives.
ConAgra brands is very proud to sponsor
this year after year.
If you're here, you are in a firehouse,
or you're already devoted to who we are and what we do.
So we're doing something fun, simple tonight.
We're just doing a firehouse Joe's.
A sloppy Joe.
We're going to start with liquid in the pan
by using some chopped onion,
two tablespoons of chili powder,
one tablespoon each of Pimenton smoked paprika,
regular paprika, coriander, and cumin.
And we're going to put that in the pan with the water
to force out the liquids in the onion.
Two pounds of beef, a little bit of
beef stock, your tomatoes.
We put about the same amount of vinegar.
Worcestershire sauce, and light Brown sugar.
And then you just let this guy bubble and get serious.
Whew!
Firehouse Joe's.
The mission of the department, of the foundation,
is to help fire departments across the country.
And what we brag about and what we're so proud of
is when you donate your money,
and I don't care how much it is.
If it's a gigantic check, that's great.
If it's a dollar, that's great.
Every dollar makes a difference, because we are literally,
within six months to a year, we are supplying vehicles,
tools, you know, technology,
the new technology, training facilities.
Even if we're just breaking ground,
you can see where the building or where the vehicle,
or where the piece of equipment is going.
We can show you the actual work of your money.
And it's so important now more than ever,
after all of the budget cuts over the last,
especially over the last five or six years,
is that there are so many fire departments
large and small that are in need.
And literally what Dennis said is so true.
A couple of bucks contributes to all of these
giant things that they need.
Training facilities.
Firefighters never go on strike.
So of course it makes common sense.
When a government has funding problems,
the first people they are going to cut are the firefighters,
because they're still gonna come to work.
So I understand that, but that's where we come in.
Now in the course of this last year, like Rachael said,
there's budget cuts all the time in fire departments,
but in the course of the last year during the pandemic,
our grant requests this fall increased-
Incredible.
260% because departments big and small,
not only have they had their budgets cut this year,
as the country starts to recover
and tries to financially recover from this pandemic,
the fire department is going to get cut even more.
So it's it's more than ever, we need people's help.