For the 15th year, the firefighters of the Coral Springs-Parkland Fire Department are turning Fire Station 80 on Coral Springs Drive into a dining room. Their Cancer Awareness Pasta Dinner runs from 5 to 9 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 24, and an $8 donation buys a plate of pasta with meatballs, bread and a drink, with the money going toward the fight against the disease that hits their own profession hardest.

Dinner at the firehouse

The dinner happens at Fire Station 80, 2825 Coral Springs Drive, the station that sits along one of the city's main north-south corridors and that most residents have driven past hundreds of times without ever walking inside. On the night of the dinner, that changes. The bay doors open, the tables go up and the people who answer 911 calls in Coral Springs and Parkland spend the evening serving food instead.

Fire Chief John Whalen put the dinner at the top of his fall quarterly message to residents, describing it as the department's 15th annual edition and noting that the pasta comes with homemade meatballs and sauce. The city's event listing sets the price as an $8 donation per person, about what a drive-through meal costs. Tickets can be bought ahead of time through the online checkout linked from the city's event page, or paid for at the door.

The four-hour window makes it easy to fit in around a Saturday. Families can come early with children who have never seen a fire engine up close, and others can stop by later on the way home. The dinner is the same night as plenty of other late-October plans in Broward County, so buying ahead is the simplest way to make sure the kitchen knows you are coming.

Where the money goes

The city's listing says proceeds support the Coral Springs Professional Firefighters Benevolent Association and other local charities, and the chief's message specifically names cancer research at the University of Miami's Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center as a beneficiary. The benevolent association is the firefighters' own charitable arm, the group that steps in when a member of the department or a family in the community needs help.

Sylvester's link to firefighters is not a coincidence. The cancer center runs the Firefighter Cancer Initiative, a program that began in Miami-Dade County about a decade ago and now works with fire departments in nearly every county in Florida. It sends mobile clinics to fire stations for screenings, hands out decontamination kits, surveys firefighters about their health every year and studies how gear, smoke and long overnight shifts affect the body. Research questions often come from firefighters themselves, who work alongside the scientists.

Why cancer is the cause

The reason a fire department picked cancer for its signature fundraiser is laid out in plain terms by the World Health Organization's cancer research agency. In 2022, a working group of the International Agency for Research on Cancer reviewed the evidence and placed occupational exposure as a firefighter in its highest category, Group 1, meaning it is carcinogenic to humans. The evidence was strongest for mesothelioma and bladder cancer, with links also found to colon, prostate and testicular cancer, melanoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Smoke from burning homes and cars, older building materials, firefighting foam and diesel exhaust are all part of the exposure.

Florida law has caught up with that science. Since 2019, a state statute has given firefighters diagnosed with any of 21 listed cancers a set of benefits, including a one-time $25,000 payment at diagnosis and coverage of out-of-pocket treatment costs, as long as they have at least five continuous years with their department and meet the law's other conditions. Those protections help after a diagnosis. Dinners like this one help pay for the research and screening that aim to catch cancer early or prevent it altogether.

A department that serves two cities

The Coral Springs-Parkland Fire Department covers both cities, handling fire suppression, emergency medical calls and public education across the northwest corner of Broward County. That means the people serving pasta at Station 80 are the same people who show up for a heart attack in Parkland or a kitchen fire in Ramblewood. The dinner is one of the few times a year residents can meet them when nothing is going wrong.

October is also Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and a fundraiser like this tends to draw people with their own reasons to be there: survivors, families who have lost someone and firefighters who have watched colleagues go through treatment. Fifteen years in, it has become one of the department's steadiest traditions.

What it means for you

Put Saturday, Oct. 24, on the calendar and plan on dinner at the firehouse. For $8 you get a hot meal cooked by your own firefighters, a chance to bring the kids inside a working station and a direct way to support cancer research and the department's charitable fund. If you have been meaning to thank the crews who cover your street, this is the easiest night of the year to do it in person.