WHAS Crusade For Children - The Firefighters

The Firefighters

The backbone of the collection efforts, and the signature of the Crusade itself, are the dozens of local fire departments who collect millions of dollars each year. Most of those donations come at road blocks set up at hundreds of intersections throughout the region, where firefighters ask motorists to put donations in boots. On a Saturday or Sunday in late spring, it's not uncommon for someone driving across metro Louisville to encounter multiple road blocks manned by volunteers.

During the telethon, each fire department brings in those donations, literally dumping them out of the boots and into "fishbowls" (aquarium-like containers) before the cameras. Before the "dump," a representative from each department usually reads a list of significant contributors, businesses who helped the department during fund-raising efforts, and numerous others who helped in any way — a process that is time-consuming and boring to many outsiders, but an endearing tradition of the Crusade that locals look forward to. Crusade organizers have tried to streamline this process of the years, with mixed results.

In the past, the fire departments brought the collections directly to the television studio, parading their trucks down the street outside with sirens blaring. But the number of participating departments has become so large that in recent years, broadcast crews have set up remote locations in outlying communities such as Elizabethtown, Corydon and elsewhere. (This also keeps the firefighters from having to bring their trucks all the way to Louisville, and closer to home in case they're needed to fight a fire.) The increase in fire department donations has forced the Crusade to broadcast a pre-telethon show, featuring the departmental reports and remotes from across the area. In 2007, Crusade organizers simply moved the official start of the broadcast to 1:30 p.m. local time, with a one-hour break for local and World News Tonight newscasts at 6:00 p.m. The 2008 Crusade followed a similar schedule, except for a two-hour break Saturday afternoon for the ABC broadcast of the 2008 Belmont Stakes; the telethon broadcast its final total during halftime of Sunday night's ABC broadcast of Game 2 of the 2008 NBA Finals. In 2011 the Crusade ended at 6:30 p.m., in order to clear the 2011 NBA Finals, the earliest on-air finish in many years.

Departments compete each year to win the Jim Walton Trophy, given to departments that record the largest percentage increase in donations from the previous year. The trophy is named for Jim Walton, a WHAS-TV personality who was the Crusade's master of ceremonies for 26 years, and was its first executive director. Fire department collections typically account for more than half of the Crusade's final total each year.