When I first met Rick about 10 years ago, I thought, this guy can’t be for real.

Since then, I’ve grown to absolutely love Rick and what he’s done.

Rick is passionate about making as much money as he can. And he’s passionate about giving every single cent of that away.

When I say that he would give the shirt off of his back, I’ve actually seen him take his shirt off and give it to somebody.

Rick’s foundation has supported our Kamloops Firefighters Charitable Society by helping us ship emergency vehicles around the world.

They’ve helped with logistics and transportation for all of our containers.

We’ve got a mandate of shipping 33 fire trucks and ambulances to Central America and with Rick’s help, it will be very close to 30 this year.

A fire department will call us up and say, “Look, we’ve got this truck to donate. We’ll give it to you if you can have it delivered to a department within six months.”

Before, we couldn’t make that commitment because we were always struggling for funding.

Whereas now, all I need to do is pick up the phone and say, “Rick, can you help us get this ambulance to this community that doesn’t have anything?”

And he’ll ask, “Is this afternoon fast enough to get you that cheque?”

Since we’ve had Rick helping us out, we can get the containers and the firetrucks and everything delivered at almost the same rate as we can acquire these things.

Without Rick’s help, we would have shipped the 33 fire trucks, but it would have taken us an extra five years.

To me, there are so many organizations out there that do some great work, but with Rick’s Heart Foundation, it truly is Rick’s heart.