Believe31 Hosts Annual First Responders Day This Saturday at Heritage Hill

Jack Eves: X101, always classic, Jack here in studio, and joining me in the studio today is president of the New York State Fire Districts Association, Dave Denniston, and vice president for Believe31 and McNeil & Company, Pat Quinn. Gentlemen, always great to see you. How are you doing today?

Pat Quinn: Great, thanks for having us, Jack.

Jack Eves: Yeah. So, big event coming up this Saturday at Heritage Hill in Onondaga County, and that is going to be obviously your annual First Responders Day, right, Pat?

Pat Quinn: It is. It’s going to be our third round of doing that. Homer Hops was tremendous to us for two years. Can’t thank that team up there enough. But Believe31 represents four counties, and that’s Cortland, Madison, Onondaga, and Oswego. So the board of directors decided to move that to a different county every two to three years. So that’s why we’re going with Heritage Hill this year.

Jack Eves: That’s great to see. And for those who might not be familiar with Believe31, you guys are a non-profit organization dedicated to assisting first responders, right?

Pat Quinn: We are. Believe31 is—Chief Mailin Irish was one of the promoters and helped build it. And that’s—his badge number was 31, and hence we use Believe31. And our goal really is to assist firefighters that have been diagnosed with cancer, and we want to support them in any way we can, financially and plus all the other resources that we have. We’ve developed a relationship with Upstate Medical. We’ve developed a relationship with Oswego Hospital. And we’re just trying to get our firefighters screened. And by that, we’re doing esophageal screening, Jack. And we’ve done—my goal was 131 firefighters screened in 2026, and we’ve actually hit that number of 236 as of last Monday.

Jack Eves: Wow!

Pat Quinn: It is amazing. But the tough part of it is, out of those 236, we’ve had 42, 42 positives, which doesn’t necessarily mean that the individual has cancer. It just means they have to go to the next level of surveillance and meet with a gastro doctor.

Jack Eves: A continued opinion.

Pat Quinn: Correct, correct.

Jack Eves: Yeah, ’cause I’m—people don’t realize, you know, when firefighters are going into a burning building, you know, there’s all those combustible materials, a lot of it’s toxic, and it’s just burning up. And, you know, first responders, there’s never going to be a hesitation going into a building, especially, you know, if they have to rescue someone, get someone out, or extinguish it to stop the fire from spreading.

Dave Denniston: We have such a high exposure rate that it’s just so important for early detection, that we’re—they’re monitoring, you know, continuously, we’re finding these things early. I’m a firefighter cancer survivor myself, and it was early detection that, you know, allowed my treatments to be successful and enable me to move forward. So, you know, the key message for everybody at this point is, you know, get screened often and, you know, get screened early and find these things so the treatments are remarkable today what they can do, but we gotta catch it early to do that.

Jack Eves: Catch it early, and it’s great to see the outreach for Believe31, you know, letting first responders, these firefighters know like, “Hey, get screened for this,” you know. And like you said, you know, it’s catching some things, they might not be cancerous, but, you know, always getting that second opinion so it can get caught early and then hopefully defeated.

Pat Quinn: Yeah, we’ve really developed a great relationship with the two hospitals that I mentioned, Upstate and Oswego. And at Heritage Hill this weekend on Saturday from noon to 4:00 o’clock, we actually have the Upstate Mammogram Van, which isn’t really a van, it’s a big RV.

Jack Eves: Yeah, I was gonna say those things, I’ve seen them driving around, they’re huge! But they got all their equipment—it’s essentially just that section of the hospital, right, on a mobile vehicle.

Pat Quinn: It is, and we’re going to do mammograms at Heritage Hill this weekend. We’re also going to do esophageal screening this weekend at Heritage Hill.

Dave Denniston: Okay.

Pat Quinn: And we’re also going to hand out colon cancer test kits to take home. Dan, the owner of Heritage Hill, his father actually had esophageal cancer and passed away from it. So once we explained what we were doing, Dan was all in, and he’s really pulling out the stops for us—to the point that he’s having canned beer made with Believe31 logo on it.

Jack Eves: Oh, that’s awesome!

Pat Quinn: I believe it’s an amber.

Jack Eves: An amber! Always a good choice in my opinion. I’m a big amber person!

Pat Quinn: That’s what, you know, they were saying, it’s a good reason to go have a beer, for sure. And Dan’s going to give us a dollar for every beer that is sold between now and when the order is done. It is pretty much free at Heritage Hill this weekend. We are doing a parking $5 donation for parking. We do expect quite a few people. It is Heritage Hill’s 8th anniversary.

Jack Eves: Wow.

Pat Quinn: So we’re going to have quite a bit of entertainment and things to do.

Jack Eves: And yeah, to add on to that, you know, I was looking at Believe31, as you guys have an event page for this on your Facebook page as well. A lot going on including you guys have 50/50 drawing, raffle baskets, there’s going to be Believe31 apparel too, with proceeds going obviously to your organization, food, beverages, a lot of kids activities, of course fire trucks, as well as two helicopters this year, right?

Pat Quinn: Yes, we’re going to have two helicopters. The coordinating person for that is Ben Joe Niemeyer, who is assistant chief up in Tully. He’s part of our group and he’s really taken that on. We may be pushing more than 20 fire trucks come game day.

Jack Eves: Wow, and looking at the weather forecast right now, I mean it’s literally going to be a beautiful fall day. So what’s—what’s going to be holding people back is absolutely nothing, I think. And again, for those not familiar, Heritage Hill is located at 3149 Sweet Road in Pompey. Again, it’s from noon to 4:00 o’clock, and talk about, you know, great opportunity for community resources, the screening as well, but also you can bring your family and have a whole bunch of fun.

Pat Quinn: Yeah, it is really—we went and checked it out before we even talked to the folks that own it because we wanted to see it from a, you know, a clear view and understand what it is. They’re going to have tremendous fun things to do for the kids. And so we encourage the families to come along and pile everybody in one car, so it’s only one $5 bill when you come in the in the gate. We do have the folks from Homer Fire Department, their fire police are coordinating with Onondaga County Fire Police to assist in the in the highway there, as well as parking. So again, collaborating with other counties to do that. And Jack, what I really encourage people to do is anybody that has anything to do with the fire departments, whether it’s auxiliary, support staff, firefighters, is get on one of those pages or call me or message one of us on there. We’d love to see people get screened. Esophageal screening takes less than 15 minutes.

Jack Eves: Wow. So, yeah, what’s holding you back for that? And it’s a great thing. And again, they can go to your Facebook page, Believe31, as well as your website, which I believe is Believe31.org, correct?

Pat Quinn: Correct, correct.

Jack Eves: Awesome. Pat, Dave, always great to see you. Is there anything else you want to add real quick?

Pat Quinn: No, we really wish we can push a few people to get there from Cortland County because this is kind of the one of the epicenters of Believe31. Would love to see a bunch of firefighting folks from Cortland County to attend and get screened.

Jack Eves: Get screened and attend for just an overall great educational and outreach and family fun day.

Pat Quinn: Correct. I just want to point out that the esophageal screening is at—the financial piece is really not an issue. We can help with that for sure. So don’t worry about the financial piece on the esophageal screening.

Jack Eves: Awesome, guys. Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day, and look forward to this Saturday. Again, it’s First Responders Day that’s going to be located at Heritage Hill in Onondaga County, that’s 3149 Sweet Road, and that’s going to be from noon to 4:00. Guys, thank you so much for coming in.

Pat Quinn: Thanks again. Appreciate 101.

Jack Eves: Yeah. For X101, I’m Jack Eves.