Drive raises $15,569 for fire victims

Times-Herald staff report
September 3, 2008

City employees, led by the Vallejo Fire Department, raised more than $15,000 for victims of the Casa de Vallejo fire last week. The American Red Cross was presented with a check for $15,569 on Tuesday. It will be deposited in a disaster relief account established specifically for those senior residents displaced in the Aug. 15 fire, said American Red Cross Disaster Services Manager Jon Gourdine.

Funds were mostly raised during an ice cream giveaway staffed by off-duty city firefighters, police and other city employees and their families at the summer's last Wednesday Night Celebration.

How to help:
Donations can be given to the American Red Cross for Casa de Vallejo relief:

Online: www.redcrossbayarea.org
Mail: 1545 North Texas St., Fairfield, CA 94534 (indicate "Casa de Vallejo" on checks)
Phone: 438-7066

Event organizer Matt Fenzl said more than 1,500 scoops of ice cream were given to the public that night, where about $13,000 of the contribution was raised.

The rest, Fenzl said, was dropped off at fire stations on other days in the past week.

The largest group donations came from the Plumbers and Steamfitters union, Local 343, at $5,000, local business owner Buck Kamphausen at $1,000, and $500 each from