SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash. — The Spokane Valley Fire Department is teaming up with a local Starbucks to thank good Samaritans. If crews see you helping someone, they may say thank you with a Starbucks gift card.
"From the fire department's perspective, it can't always be us," Fire Marshal Greg Rogers said. "It's neighbor's helping neighbors,"
Rogers knows the first people to help someone in the time of need are neighbors or good Samaritans. So he wanted to come up with a way to thank them.
"A lot of people that might stop and help us direct traffic or we may get on scene and they may be helping one of the adults or somebody that fell," Rogers said.
Through the good Samaritan reward program, Starbucks on Pines and Sprague is providing each Spokane Valley fire crew with $4 gift cards. Crews will give those gift cards to good Samaritans to say thanks.
"A lot of times we don't get to know these people's names or who they are." Rogers said. "So it created an opportunity for us to give them a gift from us to thank them for stopping and helping and doing something that they normally wouldn't have to do."
Rogers got the idea from seeing his neighbor doing a good deed to help out the fire department.
"My neighbor, every winter, he digs out the fire hydrant in the snow," Rogers said. "I thought, you know, it would cool if one day I could stop by and knock on his door and give him a card and say go have a cup of coffee on us."
Manager of the Spokane Valley Starbucks, Kara Martin said she loves being a part of this community. Providing the gift cards is an easy way to do that.
"As simple as it is to load a couple cards for the fire department and give them to good Samaritans, it's so easy and can make a big difference in our community," Martin said.
To be clear, the program is not mean to encourage private citizens to run inside a burning building. It's meant to be a way for the department to thank community members for medical or smaller incidents.
"We're hoping to increase the program and spread the word as far and wide as we can get," Rogers said.