Firefighters filling the boot for MDA during Festival Days

Havre firefighters will be on the streets during Festival Days with boots in hand asking people to help them help Muscular Dystrophy Association.

Local 601 of the International Association of Fire Fighters will be on First Street from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m Friday, on the intersections with Third and Fourth avenues, in the annual Fill the Boot Campaign.

The fire fighters will be asking people to stop and make a donation in the campaign, with the proceeds going to Muscular Dystrophy Association.

Members of the firefighter union have been holding the Fill the Boot Campaign for more than 60 years, supporting MDA’s work including research — with three new promising drugs receiving FDA approval in the past year, the union webpage on the campaign says — supporting MDA care centers and sending children to the Muscular Dystrophy Association Summer Camp.

The firefighters have been raising money for MDA since the drive started in 1954.

IAFF is the single largest sponsor for the association and, since 1954, has raised more than $558 million for MDA, including $24 million in 2017 alone.

The Havre local was one of 1,567 participating in the drive last year, with more than 100,000 firefighters across the U.S. in the drive.

The Fill the Boot drive was one of the earliest fundraisers for the association, which was created in 1950, awarding its first research grant that year, the Muscular Dystrophy Association website says.

Perhaps the most familiar fundraiser was the Labor Day telethon, which ran from 1956 through 2014. It started with comedic duo Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin appealing to people to support muscular dystrophy research at the end of their NBC television show in 1951, and then co-hosting a telethon in 1956.

Lewis hosted MDA telethons again in 1957 and 1959, and then in 1966 held the first MDA Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon. That tradition continued until Lewis was unable to continue hosting, and announced his retirement in 2011.

MDA continued the telethon, although in increasingly streamlined formats, from 2011 through 2014, ending the tradition in 2015.

In 1952 National Association of Letter Carriers became the first national sponsor for MDA, holding Deliver the Cure fundraisers.

The Fill the Boot Campaign began in 1954 when a group of families affected by muscular dystrophy approached Local 718 fire station in Boston asking for help. The fire fighters took to the streets with their boots, starting a nationwide tradition and making IAFF the top fundraising association for MDA.

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Online: Muscular Dystrophy Association : https://www.mda.org/.

IAFF Fill the Boot campaign: https://firefighters.mda.org/.