THE local Bridgetown State Emergency Service (SES) tinted the town orange on Wednesday November 12 as a part of Wear Orange Wednesday (WOW) Day.
WOW Day is a day of recognition and appreciation where the dedicated work of SES volunteers is celebrated across Australia.
The focus of WOW Day is to encourage the community to show their support in a very simple but highly visible gesture by wearing the colour orange and having orange displays set up, as orange is the colour worn by SES volunteers.
SES volunteers have a passion for helping people in the worst of weather and at the hardest of times, helping with storm and flood operations, searches and other rescue activities.
In Bridgetown trees were wrapped in emergency tape, information notices were hanging off trees and a visual display with a dummy hanging from the Town Hall was a major attraction, all set up as a way to attract attention to the amazing service this organisation provides.
Bridgetown SES Local Unit Manager, Ann O'Keefe was pleased with the display and hopes it will attract new members to the organisation.
"We currently have 17 members in our unit and I am hoping to get more locals to come along and be involved in the SES," Ms O'Keefe said.
"We have males and females of all ages, with our youngest member being 17 years old."
"The SES plays an important role in the community with jobs including storm season flood control, dealing with storm damage such as damaged roofs, trees on buildings and sand bagging when needed. In summer we provide fire support, moving personnel around, delivering food and helping out as needed. We are all qualified to go onto fire grounds, and we support the hard working fire-fighters. We are also involved in searches throughout the year.
"I would like to thank the Bridgetown-Greenbushes Shire for their ongoing support of the SES, and particularly for allowing us to use their building to hang our display from."
For more information about the SES please contact Anne O'Keefe on 9761 1877.
