09/05/2026
🥾 FILL THE BOOT — A FIRE SERVICE TRADITION SINCE 1954 🚒
If you see Centralia Fire Fighters standing in the roadway today with boots in hand, you are seeing a tradition that goes back more than 70 years.
The relationship between the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) and the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) began in Boston. In 1953, Boston Fire Fighters Local 718 member George Graney helped a friend whose two sons had Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Graney and fellow firefighters took to the community to raise money, collecting approximately $5,000. The following year, in 1954, IAFF delegates officially designated MDA as the union’s charity of choice and committed to continuing the fight until cures are found.
That simple act of firefighters asking their community for help grew into what we now know as Fill the Boot.
Since then, IAFF members across the United States and Canada have carried their boots into intersections and communities year after year. Together, firefighters have raised more than $700 million for MDA, helping fund research, treatments, care centers, summer camps, education, advocacy, and support for children and adults living with muscular dystrophy, ALS, and other neuromuscular diseases.
Today, Centralia Fire Fighters Local 618 is proud to carry on that tradition right here at home.
Every dollar dropped into one of our boots becomes part of something much bigger — more than seven decades of firefighters standing together with families affected by neuromuscular disease.
To everyone who stopped, waved, honked, donated, or simply helped spread the word today: THANK YOU!
Centralia has always supported its firefighters, and we’re proud to have the opportunity to give that support back.
🥾 Fill the Boot.
🚒 IAFF Local 618.
❤️ For MDA — until cures are found.
