Longboat Key firefighters participate in Carry the Load walk

For 4 miles, Longboat Key Fire Department personnel helped carry the load. 

Or rather, for 4 miles, Longboat Key fire personnel helped Carry the Load, a nationwide walk organized by service members and first responders to celebrate Memorial Day. Since 2011, veterans and first responders have been organizing walks with local first responders to raise money and honor the nation’s heroes. 

“They all come together in Texas, but they just happened to be in our area,” said department spokeswoman Tina Adams said. “This event is the first time that they’ve actually come to this coast. They’re going to add it for future years and we got kind of a late notice, and they still had to go through the town to get permits so it was a couple days until we got the go-ahead that it was happening. There wasn’t much time to get information out to our employees.” 

Even still, Adams walked with Chief Paul Dezzi, fire and rescue liaison Raymond Burger and Deputy Chief Sandy Drake, as well as some walkers from the Carry the Load organization, on May 19.

They started at the south fire station and walked north on Gulf of Mexico Drive until they reached the north fire station. Every Carry the Load walk is about four miles, which just so happened to be the distance station-to-station. They walked with the Carry the Load volunteers and heard stories of the first responders people were walking in memory of, like one woman who was there to remember her father and his service as a firefighter in Florida. The nationwide Carry the Load walk goes for 30 days.  

“It was pretty cool, the roads weren’t as busy and the sidewalks weren’t busy. so it was a nice time to do it and a nice time to do it as Memorial Day approaches,” Adams said. “We got a lot of honks and support from people passing by. It was pretty cool. … It was a little warm for the first mile, but as that sun started going down, there was a nice breeze and it turned out pretty beautiful and the humidity wasn’t bad. Take away the humidity and you got yourself a good day.” 

Adams and the rest of Longboat Key’s first responders had never heard of the Carry the Load walks because they’ve never come to this coast of Florida before. Now that they know of the Memorial Day walk, Adams hopes to do it every year and bring in more people from the police department, fire department, town and citizens. 

“Next year we’ll know more and get more of the community and more of our town employees to participate next year, so we’ll plan for it more, unlike this year,” Adams said. “It’ll be the same time next year we’ll push it out next year since we know what it’s all about.”