Lorain, Ohio, June 12, 2018– In remembrance of Big Rig Rescue Instructor Billy Leach, The Turtle Plastics Foundation announces The Billy Leach Fire Training and Equipment Grants Fund. The Turtle Plastics Foundation, a not-for-profit organization, will be offering grants to qualified 501(c)(3) rural volunteer fire departments with very limited funding to help with training and equipment.
“To honor him and the work he has done, I thought it would be fitting to name one of the Turtle Plastics Foundation’s grants after Billy,” explained Tom Norton, founder of Turtle Plastics. Norton, a personal friend of Leach said he was greatly saddened by the news of Leach’s death. “My wife Karen and I recently had dinner with Billy,” Norton said. “Billy and I shared stories of our victories over recent health issues including the tying of shoes,” Norton chuckled. “Afterwards I sent him a pair of Velcro strapped shoes like I wore and you would of thought I sent him diamonds.”
The Turtle Plastics Foundation was formed on June 22, 2017 in order to establish a broad-based nonprofit organization whose mission is to advocate, create, support and promote educational, environmental, health and safety initiatives worldwide in addition to continuing Tom and Karen’s work in Haiti establishing a 2400 student school and a hospital. It will accomplish this mission through grants, donations, public awareness events and other marketing efforts. The Foundation plans to make distributions to Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3) organizations. The focus of the Foundation will be the support of worthy non-profit causes related to the improvement of public health, education, safety and the global environment.
