Day 1: Pink Fire Trucks

Ok, so, I challenged myself to write on blog entry each day for the month of October.  Considering I averaged zero entries per day before October, it was probably a bit ambitious.  As it is, I’m in the last 63 minutes of October 1 and I am just starting this entry…I think this is gonna be a long month!

The good news is that I have already learned SO much more than I thought I would!  I’ve found dozens of pink items from tweezers to Bibles and am going to have no lack of items to feature for the rest of the month.  Not to mention my new knowledge of Flickr and Blogger…I think this is going to be a pretty useful endeavor.

Now, on to the project.  Coming out of SUITE with some friends on Thursday, we walked smack in to this pepto-bismal colored fire truck.  I had heard something about it on the news or somewhere, but never expected to see this thing.  It’s a regular fire truck, just painted pink with a “Pink Heals” logo and a ton of signatures all over it.

Of course, we jumped up for a few pictures.  Thanks to my models, Megan and Cate, and our photographer Josh (he’s a good photographer because he’s tall so he gets a more flattering angle). 

So, I can only conclude that pink fire trucks fight breast cancer.

I just had to look in to this. 

It seems like this is a project spearheaded by “Dave”.  A firefighter from Arizona, he is working diligently to take this truck on a tour across the country and encourage fire and police departments to support the women of their community.  I love the website…their “click here to view a recent article” takes you to a 2009 editorial feature from a high school newspaper.  Even better is Dave’s blog.  Grammatical errors aside, all I can really tell from his blog and website, is that he really doesn’t trust politicians and he likes driving around a pink fire truck.  Fine with me.  Interestingly enough, he also seems to be using this pink fire truck tour as a way to save jobs of public servants.  Uhhh, I’m not seeing the tie in here, but he was an Olympic athlete and he has a picture in a pink fireman jacket, so it must be true.

I highly recommend a perusal of Dave’s “talking points”.  Any of my countless PR professional friends will be cringing in seconds.  I’m sure the words “stay on message” are not familiar to him. There are references to being a “non-profit” but no official verbiage that you would normally see on a non-profit’s website.  Also, it looks like they let other groups sell their shirts to raise money.  What. A. Cluster.

Wow, I’m being very cynical right now.  The score is 38 to 10, Alabama, so my cynicism has to go somewhere!  And I’m now 37 minutes to my deadline!  I’ll try to be funnier in the next one!