Jerry Crawford and Jarod Lindholm

Showing that volunteering is something that can easily run in the family, Jerry Crawford and Jarod Lindholm, grandfather and grandson, actually come from a family with 4 generations of volunteer fire fighters/rescue crew members. Jerry and Jarod both are members of Kingsport Lifesaving Crew- Jerry has been there 41 years and Jarod has been there for 2 years. Jarod also volunteers part time at Sullivan County Volunteer Fire Department. Both are originally from Kingsport, and both attended Dobyns Bennett High School. Jerry is a retired Maintenance Mechanic with Eastman, and Jarod is in Paramedic School at Northeast State. Jerry is married with 2 children. In their free time they both enjoy outdoor activities like fishing and camping, and are both members of High Ground Baptist Church in Kingsport. Jerry originally got involved with volunteering after an auto accident put him in intensive care for 4 days. It actually turned out that his future father-in-law was one of the people who helped with pulling him from the car that night. As far as Jarod’s entrance into the volunteering life, you could say his family had a lot to do with it- both his mother and uncle are paramedics, as well as Jerry. Their advice to anybody thinking about volunteering is that you need to make sure you have the time to commit to it, willing to put in some hard work, and need to have the right attitude about volunteering- but the best thing of all is that it’s just a fun experience to be a part of.