Community Ambulance Corps Needs Your Help

Since 1958, the has been available around the clock to provide help to anyone who needs it. 

Now, the ambulance corps is in need of a lending hand itself.

The all-volunteer organization launched its semi-annual fund drive earlier this week, sending fliers to the nearly 30,000 homes that constitute the Little Neck - Douglaston area. 

"The community always pulls through for us, so we're counting on it again," said Louis Calderon, the ambulance corps' president, adding that 80 percent of the organization's funding comes from individual contributions – the other 20 percent is a medley of grants and donations from local civic groups. 

With an operating cost of $110,000 a year, Calderon said donations are crucial to enabling the ambulance corps to do its job, namely, answering both emergency and non-emergency calls from the community and offering transport to hospitals within a 50-mile radius. 

Unlike emergency services provided by the city, calling the corps without insurance does not equate to a lifetime of hounding by a collections agency.

In fact, Calderon said that of the calls they receive, roughly 30 percent go unpaid for.  

"If you have insurance, you’re already paying premiums, and we’ll collect from insurance," Calderon said. "But if we don’t get paid, we’re not going to come after you." 

But just because the corps isn't always compensated for its services doesn't mean it runs without expenses. Everything from its sky-high insurance rates down to pens and stationary requires financing that as of now, the organization simply doesn't have.

Despite garnering around $30,000 from the two fund drives held in 2010, Calderon said the corps is currently operating on a negative budget. With 42 active members - up three times from last year -  volunteers are stuck sharing uniforms and passing the time between calls on increasingly tattered couches. 

More pressingly though, donations are necessary for the organization to continue performing its singular duty: saving lives.

“From the community perspective, it won’t be that you wont get an ambulance when you call us," Calderon said. "But if we don’t have the funds, eventually the services will stop.”

"We're not at that point yet," he added. "But it’s  a community ambulance. It’s up to the community to support us." 

To request a donation envelope, call the ambulance corps office at (718) 423-2333, or send an email to president@lndamb.org. Donations can also be made online by clicking here.

In the event of an emergency, call 718-229-0400.