Reading Area Firefighters Museum exchanges gifts with neighborhood school

Less than two blocks separate Reading Area Firefighters Museum and Tyson-Schoener Elementary School, but the relationship fostered between the nonprofit museum and the school over a half-dozen years is even tighter.

That was on display Thursday morning during a Christmas-themed school assembly that featured an appearance by the museum mascot, Blaze, and Santa Clause, who bore a remarkable resemblance to Mayor Eddie Moran.

The main event consisted of back-to-back check presentations.

Lisa Stoddard, a third grade teacher, presented a check for $250 to Harry Koppenberg, museum education committee chairman, in appreciation of the museum hosting its students on annual field trips to the former Liberty Fire Company at Fifth and Laurel streets.

“We like to try to always give back here at Tyson-Schoener, so the teachers decided to have a dress-down day and collect any kind of money that we could donate to the museum as a ‘thank you’ and we also allow our kids to donate if they wish,” Stoddard explained after the assembly.

Stoddard heads the elementary school’s positive behavior incentive system.

“We try to reward our kids every month for good behavior and one of our rewards is to go to the fire museum every year,” she said.

The students love being in the converted brick three-story 19th century firehouse, seeing museum artifacts and taking part in hands-on presentations given by museum volunteers, who, like Koppenberg, are retired firefighters.

“The guys do such a great job,” Stoddard said. “They do little activities. They show how they used to carry the water. They do a little bucket brigade and get the kids to line up and pass the buckets. They just do an amazing job teaching the history of firefighters and how it’s evolved over the years.”

Come January, the museum will have a room newly designated for youth activities, Koppenberg told the students. The $250 donation from the school community will be used to help pay for those improvements.

While that money was being collected, Koppenberg called Stoddard about a donation the museum was making to the school on behalf of a donor.

A friend of the museum granted the money for the purpose of promoting fire safety awareness but didn’t further specify how it was to be used.

Members of the museum’s education committee decided the best use of the grant was to make a $500 donation to the school library to ensure there were library books on fire awareness and safety, Koppenberg told the students before presenting the check to school officials.

“We thought, we have such a great relationship with kids at Tyson-Schoener,” he said. “They have such a great group of students. We thought we’d give a $500 donation to your library so you can have books on fire safety and awareness, so you can benefit from it as well as all of the rest of the kids that follow.”