BRYAN, TX — Financial instability is not only affecting people in their homes. Now a local law enforcement agency is seeking financial assistance.
Local first responders put their lives on the line every day protecting their community. The NRA and other organizations take pride in helping them purchase their life-saving equipment.
Every morning they gear up with each piece of equipment they wear is all essential to their daily duties.
"We put this duty belt on,"said Constable Donald Lampo, Brazos County Constable Precinct 2 officer. “Your taser, your duty weapon, extra ammunition, And one of the last things you do is you grab your body armor make sure it’s good and ready to go just kind of slide it on and zipper up and then turn your body camera on,”
For the past 10 years, the NRA has provided Brazos County Constable Precinct 2 deputy officers with financial assistance to acquire lifesaving equipment. Every so often the equipment must get renewed.
”They have a five-year period and then they expire and every five years we have to get new vests and in years passed the NRA has been gracious enough with their grant,” Lampo explained.
The pandemic impacted the NRA's fundraising efforts which led them to decrease the amount of grant funding they were able to provide this year. When it comes to new equipment like body armor, it can rack up in costs.
“The ones we get run $1,000 a piece, so we’re looking at $8,000 and they usually fund that and this year it was $2,500,”
The Brazos Valley Friends of NRA have provided at least 15 grants to local organizations.
This year their funds were cut a bit short as well.
”Overall, we were about one-third of what we’ve been the past couple of years. That really impacted the number of grants we were able to give out and the individual amount per grant,” said Stephen Yeldell, chairman for Brazos Valley Friends of NRA.
For the 100 club, their main goal is to support families and first responders who lost a loved one or have been injured in the line of duty.
Executive director, William Skeen says. “That’s our number one mission here. Our second very important mission is providing life protecting equipment to help these heroes stay safe doing the jobs to protect us all,”
According to Skeen, the 100 Club has provided first responders with about 13 million dollars in equipment over the last 30 years.
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