Group hopes to sweeten workdays for members of fire department

Valentine’s Day is one of the most popular reasons Americans purchase candy — with the U.S. spending more than $1.7 billion on the sweet stuff each February.

But it won’t just be boxes of chocolates sweetening the lives of Vestavia’s first responders this month, as one community group is looking to show some hospitality to the city’s firefighters.

Vestavia Hills Fire Sweet Tooth, led by Nicole Zabriskie, was started out of the same vein of thinking as Vestavia Hills Cop Stop, Zabriskie said.

Cop Stop is a program where community members open their homes to police officers for a warm meal and a stress-free way to get to know one another, and it has been operating in Vestavia for a couple years.

“Everybody on the [Cop Stop Facebook] page every once in a while mentions, ‘Well what about the firefighters? What can we do for them?” Zabriskie said. But because firefighters cannot leave the station the same way police officers do, the same model is impossible.

Zabriskie is the coordinator for Vestavia’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), and said she is quite familiar with the demands the environment first responders deal with and the leadership within the department.

“So I said, ‘OK, it’s time for me to do this,’” she said.

After talking with VHFD Chief Marvin Green, Zabriskie said it made the most sense for those interested in giving back to the fire department to bring desserts to the station once a month. While it sounds simple, Zabriskie said, there are a lot of moving parts to getting such a regular event organized.

Vestavia has five fire stations as well as the central administrative office at City Hall, and each station has three shifts: A, B and C, but through the power of the internet, she said it’s been possible to figure out a system.

Over the holidays, Sweet Tooth provided stockings filled with goodies for each firefighter and administrator, and in January made the first delivery of baked goods and treats to the stations.

Zabriskie said the desserts are a way to “just make sure all of our first responders are taken care of.”

Those interested in contributing to Vestavia Hills Fire Sweet Tooth can find more information at the group’s Facebook page at facebook.com/Vestavia-Hills-Fire-Sweet-Tooth-130781490922689, or by contacting Zabriskie directly by email at nic.zabriskie@gmail.com.