Friday marks the second day of the 130th Central District Volunteer Firemen's Association Convention hosted by the Nanty Glo Volunteer Fire Department.

The convention is a 3-day event and ends Saturday with a grand parade at 5pm.

Today's festivities included a queen contest, a battle of the barrell and a memorial service. There are also various food and craft vendors as well as a basket raffle.

While the purpose of the convention is to have fun and support your local fire department, firefighters remind us just how important these types of events are for their fundraising efforts.

“The last piece of fire apparatus that we bought in this station cost 1 million dollars," said Tom Bracken, a Nanty Glo Firefighter. "That’s money that we had to raise on our own to pay for it. The cost is astronomical to run a volunteer fire department. This fundraiser is a major fundraiser for our department, but any fundraiser for any fire department, we need to support each and every fire department out there.”

If you want to come out this Friday evening, the convention will feature a comic parade, a cornhole tournament and live music by the band "Undercover."

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