Excerpts from vfpnews.com:

… employees from Monsanto’s Waterman production site selected the Waterman Community Fire Protection District (WCFPD) to receive a $10,000 grant from the Monsanto Fund’s 2015 site grant initiative.

Funds from the grant will be used to purchase a self-contained breathing apparatus, or SCBA, for the front line trucks.

“Our current SCBAs are outdated,” Fire Captain David Oest said in a news release. “With new technology in the face masks, we will be better equipped to aid our personnel in fire conditions.”

The WCFPD and Waterman site have worked together for the past eight years. The WCFPD has received other grants for air bags that lift heavy equipment and stabilize vehicles in crash situations and a multipurpose tool that helps extricate people from their cars in the case of a vehicle collision.

This year, the Monsanto Fund awarded more than $1.2 million to nonprofit organizations through the site grant initiative to help address essential needs in rural communities. Emergency response organizations across the country have received more than $3.4 million from the fund since 2010.