“Answering the call” can take a lot of forms, and for NorthStar Restoration Services and the Wausau Firefighters Community Assistance Foundation (WFCAF), a recent golf outing led to a $35,000 donation that will do just that.

On Sept. 4 at Greenwood Hills Country Club, NorthStar and WFCAF hosted more than 30 teams in a four-person scramble. More than 130 golfers drove and chipped their way through the event, which raised funds for three key WFCAF programs:

• Dream Vacation Program – WFCAF strives to provide families some down time to get away and heal, whether it’s to mourn a fallen firefighter, or more recently, for the family of a small girl with leukemia who got to visit Disney World and an Airbnb mountain cabin in Colorado.
• Gift Card Program – Wausau firefighters answer about 7,000 calls from 911 every year, and while they sometimes see the best of humanity stepping up when needed, they also see the worst of conditions in which many of their neighbors sometimes live. Each station maintains a small stock of $50 cards to help out needy families they encounter.
• Firefighter Scholarship Program – WFCAF offers aid to those who mirror its core values with their education and training to become firefighters.

“It’s very rewarding, and Jay (Cricks) and Shawn (Millikin) of NorthStar are very big assets to the community,” said Matt Tormohlen, a firefighter and paramedic who is president of WFCAF. “People don’t understand some of the conditions that people are living in, so it’s a pretty rewarding program.”

NorthStar Restoration Services, at 4900 Stewart Ave. in Wausau, specializes in repairing damage from water, fire, and smoke; mold remediation; and cleanup of trauma at crime scenes, and in biohazard and hoarding. NorthStar Restoration can be reached at 715-227-8338 or https://www.northstarrestorationservices.com.