PORTSMOUTH, Ohio — Firefighters with the Portsmouth Fire Department, IAFF Local 9, walked the River Days Parade route Saturday morning holding boots out to the crowd, collecting more than $2,700 in donations for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

The department’s “Fill the Boot” collection is one of its biggest fundraisers of the year and one of its favorite community interactions, the department said in a Facebook post thanking the “citizens of Portsmouth, Scioto County and beyond” for their generosity.

Portsmouth firefighters carry an MDA boot along the River Days Parade route
Portsmouth firefighters carry an MDA boot along the River Days Parade route. Photo: Portsmouth Fire Department

Saturday’s parade stepped off from Spartan Stadium at 11 a.m. and traveled up Boundary Street, west on Jackson Avenue, north on Offnere Street, west on Gallia Street and north on Chillicothe Street before disbanding at Tracy Park, part of the three-day River Days festival that has brought Labor Day weekend crowds to Portsmouth’s Boneyfiddle district for more than six decades.

The Fill the Boot campaign dates to 1954, when families affected by muscular dystrophy approached Boston firefighters with what is now IAFF Local 718 and asked for help. The firefighters took to the streets with their boots to collect donations, and the effort was successful enough that the International Association of Fire Fighters passed a resolution to support the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s mission until treatments and cures are found. IAFF affiliates nationwide have since raised more than $650 million for MDA, funding research and care programs for people living with muscular dystrophy, ALS and related neuromuscular diseases.

Portsmouth firefighters collect donations along the River Days Parade route
Portsmouth firefighters collect donations along the River Days Parade route. Photo: Portsmouth Fire Department

Portsmouth’s own fire department has a long history of its own. Its first paid chief, E.B. Hughes, was sworn in on June 2, 1871, after years of volunteer companies led by a rotating cast of chief engineers, according to the department. It now operates as IAFF Local 9 and continues to take part in the Fill the Boot drive each year alongside similar boot drives held by fire departments across the country, typically around Labor Day weekend.

The information contained in this story was obtained from the Portsmouth Fire Department.

Connor is a staff writer for the Guardian.