Every now and again Lucas residents get an opportunity to reach out and give back to their community, and that is just what Joseph Paul Homes is doing by allowing the Lucas Fire Department to practice on a plot of land being developed east of Lovejoy High School.

“The property is located just down the street from the high school on Estates,” president of Joseph Paul Homes Joe Vastano said. “It is going to known as Rimrock Estates and will be comprised of 9 homes on a cul de sac street. We plan on making the property available to the fire department (or any Lucas emergency personnel) for training purposes in December once the community is completed.”

Thanks to Joseph Paul Homes’ generous donation, the Lucas Fire Department will be able to practice on one of the existing homes in the community which is scheduled to be torn down before the new homes are built.

“The first home on the west side of the street into the community is a blue-ish home which we will raze in order to build our model home.  But before we do that, we thought it would be beneficial for us to give back to the City of Lucas by allowing the fire department to invest about two weeks of training in the old home,” Vastano said. “Our belief is that the training they will get may save one life – in which case, it is more of a responsibility of ours to let Lucas use this home than anything else.”

Joseph Paul Homes’ act of goodwill is greatly supported by Leslie Owens, Sales Manager at Joseph Paul Homes, who believes giving the LFD a rare opportunity to harness and practice their skills is a great civic duty.

“Captain David Leonard coordinates training to keep his guys sharp, but it is highly unusual to be able to actually train in a structure like this,” Owens said. “Most of the time corporations and businesses and pretty much most people want to remove and rebuild their own structure because in their eyes “time is money” and they do not put the value in actually participating within the community. Our thoughts were the fact that these are our hometown heroes… They think about us every day and how to keep us safe and we, as a community need to do the same. The Lucas Fire Department has plans in the future to hopefully start uploading the plan designs of newly constructed homes and then go back and try and obtain the layouts of older homes in an attempt to be able to quickly navigate a home in order to find people quickly in case of a fire.”

Vastano and Owens, via the help of Joseph Paul Homes see the value and good-willed nature of their donation to the LFD.

“Every day the fire department is on call to save lives; if we can help them by providing a structure for them to practice their jobs on in a real-life setting, how fantastic an opportunity for them and us,” Vastano said. “They can literally have hands on experiences which will no doubt help them do their job.”