Celebrating Newton Firefighters 12 Months a Year

It started with a desire to do something, anything, for the families of two firefighters who died in the Tai Ho Chinese restaurant fire in 2007.

After casting about for ideas, , a public safety photographer and son of a Brookline firefighter, decided to make a calendar of the pictures he'd already taken at fires around Boston and sell them to raise money for the Boston Firefighter Children's Fund.

"I started to look around to see what I could do other than put money in a boot," said Walsh, who also contributes to Newton Patch.

Three years later, Walsh is making calendars for six communities and donating the proceeds to a variety of causes. He's gone from selling 40 calendars last year, when he only did two communities, to selling 1,500 in just the last two weeks. And he's making more deliveries daily.

Walsh said the growing popularity of his calendars, which he sells for $18, is fueled by word of mouth among the Boston area's close-knit family of firefighters.

"The guys are seeing them and they've never seen anything like that," he said.

Walsh has produced 2011 calendars for Brookline, Boston, Needham, Newton and Sherborn, as well as one that features firefighters from the entire metro Boston region. The calendars include photos from firehouses and medical responses, as well as many shots of firefighters in action over the last year.

"They had one fire in Sherborn last year and I made a calendar out of it—talk about being creative," he said.

This year's Newton calendar features shots from the three-alarm fire that tore through a historic Centre Street home back in March, injuring three local firefighters. 

The Boston calendar includes photos from a massive nine-alarm fire in Roxbury last August, as well as a variety of incidents in Jamaica Plain.

Proceeds from calendar sales in all communities except Newton and Boston will go to the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Boston calendars are raising money for the Boston Firefighters Children's Fund, while proceeds from the Newton calendar will go to the Jessica Locke Firefighter Fund.

Calendars can be ordered by contacting Walsh at stephenwalsh1030@msn.com.