After 911, the nation became better aware of just what our firefighters do for us. They are willing to put their lives at
risk so they can save our lives. Having Andy Solis as someone close to me in the fire department, my own eyes had
been opened to what our local volunteer fire fighters go through. I would see him come home from a hard days
work at his full time job and then get called out in the middle of the night to fight a fire, only to go home and get
ready to go back to work with only a few hours sleep. I wanted to do something to help, but knew I was unable to
actually fight the fires with them. I inquired as to how I could best get involved since we did not have an auxiliary
and I was not related to a firefighter. The answer I got back was, “Start one.” Andy informed me that the original
auxiliary that had phased out in ’96, had been founded by, among others, his mother, Shirley Solis. This became my
inspiration and the desire to start and auxiliary became prevalent. I then began surfing the net for information on
other fire department auxiliaries. Though the traditional “Ladies” Auxiliaries were out there, I also found that many
auxiliaries were opening membership to anyone in the community, both men and women. In December of 2002 at
Andy’s Birthday party I asked two ladies Betty Doucet and Niki Lyster, who were wives of firefighters if they would
like to help me get an Auxiliary started and they said, “Yes!” We began meeting on Monday nights and went over
the information pulled from other Auxiliaries. We then took it before the fire department and were accepted. My
desire then became a reality. The Clute Volunteer Fire Department Auxiliary, open to any member of the
community that wanted to help support our volunteer fire department, had it’s first meeting in May of 2003. The
Brazosport Facts was kind enough to do an article on our new organization and we made the front page of the
Sunday paper with a nice size color picture of some of our members. We currently have more training and fund
raisers scheduled. We have a wonderful group of auxiliary members who all have the same goal. We are here to
support our volunteer fire fighters.
Rebecca Clements
Former President, Clute Volunteer Fire Department Auxiliary
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