The Riverside Fire Department is ready to serve up to 1,000 people during their first-ever drive-through chicken dinner fundraiser tomorrow evening.

Chief Chad Smothers says the boxed dinner will include a chicken quarter, curly fries and coleslaw with serving from 5 to 7 p.m., and attendees will drive their vehicles through the bays of fire station to order and pick up their meal for a free will donation. He says proceeds will go towards a new grass fire truck, an essential vehicle for a rural-serving fire department, “It gets utilized heavily in the spring and the fall when conditions are drier. In the springtime, people start out with a controlled burn or they’re burning trash or trying to burn off a ditch and it gets away from them and catches a field on fire. We’ve had a few of them this spring where they did get to some buildings also, and then in the fall, obviously there’s harvest and things happen out in the field. We’ll get a field of corn stalks or beans and we’ll have some problems there. These trucks are smaller, they’re more agile out in the field, they’re four-wheel drive which is necessary to operate off road. They serve a very big role in what we do and what our response matrix looks like for our community.”

Earlier this week, the Riverside City Council approved a bid of $35,000 to purchase the truck chassis. Smothers says outfitting the vehicle with firefighting equipment will bring the total cost to about $100,000, and they hope to have the truck in service this fall.