The Brantley Family

Members of the Brantley family provide fire protection and injury prevention programs for the Cedar Crossing community near Lyons, Georgia.

Cedar Crossing is a rural community. Before the Brantley family help start the volunteer fire department, there was no fire service nearby. The closest fire department was a little over 18 miles away in Lyons. Most of the time, property and lives were lost well before firefighters arrived. Residents of Cedar Crossing often had to pay higher insurances rates because there was not a fire department in the vicinity.

The Brantley family help start the fire department with one donated fire truck from Lyons. Although it was old and in much need of repair, it assisted with putting out fires. However, they did not have a fire station to store the donated truck. Members of the Brantley family help coordinate fundraisers to raise $10,000 to start building a fire station; they even got a local farmer to donate land to build the station.