Old Lycoming Township Volunteer Fire Company

The Old Lycoming Township Volunteer Fire Co has served our township for 84 years providing fire, rescue and EMS services. In addition to our township and the southern portion of Lycoming Township, we also provide when requested, services to our neighbors north and west of us and to the City of Williamsport.

We have thus far remained all volunteer, but we must prepare for the future where we may have to look at becoming a paid/volunteer fire company due to a lack of people willing to volunteer for the fire service. This is a problem across Pennsylvania and the nation. Fire, rescue and EMS certifications today require a significant amount of time to complete compared to 20 years ago and this has had a negative impact on people willing to volunteer. It also impacts our fund-raising efforts because there is only so much time most of us have for volunteer work and training takes precedence over fund raising because training is necessary to help those in need of our services.

To supplement our fund-raising efforts, we have increased our grant application process. However, some grant providers are restricting their awards to only those organizations that have an IRS 501c3 designation. Since we met the qualifications to become a 501c3 organization, we prepared in 2022 an application to the IRS to change our designation from a 501c4 to a 501c3 so that we would have the opportunity for additional grants. We received that approval in Oct 2022.

Another opportunity from the 501c3 designation, besides more grant opportunities, is being eligible for the First Community Foundation Partnership’s Raise the Region fund raiser to be held March 13th through 14th this year. We are grateful to FCFP for including us in this year’s event and ask if you are able to consider a donation to our fire co to help supplement our capital equipment needs, it will be most appreciated.

Thank you,

Members of Old Lycoming Township Volunteer Fire Co