By Casey Jay
The San Jose Mercury News
CAMPBELL, Calif. — Hundreds of glasses of ale have brought one Campbell project closer to fruition. On March 10, Rock Bottom Restaurant and Brewery in the Pruneyard hosted its annual Fire Chief Ale Promotion, which raises funds for various fire-related charities in each local Rock Bottom community.
This year, all the sales of the brewery’s special Fire Chief Ale are going to the Friends of Rescue 25 Restoration Project, a nonprofit organization of former Campbell Fire Department members and friends. Its goal is to raise enough money to restore Campbell’s paramedic vehicle to its original service condition.
Fred Van Hook, a former Campbell firefighter and paramedic and member of the friends team, said the efforts to restore the vehicle began more than two years ago.
“Charlie Gibson, Alan Lowder and myself went before the council and asked if we could start fundraising for it,” Van Hook said.
Since then, Van Hook and the Rescue 25 friends have been setting up booths and displaying the truck at just about every local event.
“We go to Oktoberfest, the Easter parade, Boogie on the Bayou everything Campbell puts on,” Van Hook said.
The Rescue 25 team sold hats and T-shirts and took donations at all of the events, but it proved to be more challenging than expected to raise $18,000 in about a year as they’d intended.
“With the economy the way it is, it’s taken us a bit longer,” Van Hook said. “We’re at about $9,000 now, and we’re hoping this event gets us to that final mark.”
It was Rescue 25’s presence at a Campbell event this past summer that got Rock Bottom’s attention. The team was out in the quad during a free music event at the Pruneyard when the restaurant’s manager Bennett Ponder ran into Van Hook.
“This year it just made sense to partner up with the historical society and Rescue 25,” Ponder said. “They’re right here in our back yard.”
The Pruneyard location of Rock Bottom has generated more than $100,000 for charities, and the company has donated $1.5 million total nationwide through the Fire Chief Ale promotion.
For residents who missed the tapping on March 10, there will be a second event on March 31, where once again 100 percent of the proceeds from all the Fire Chief Ale purchased will go to Rescue 25. If that night doesn’t work, Rock Bottom invites guests to sample the ale any night this month and the restaurant will donate 25 cents of every purchase.
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