Hatzalah of Rockaways-Nassau in need of financial rescue

Newly-founded young leaders group responding to the call

By Mayer Fertig Issue of September 11,  2009 / 22 Elul 5769 Many Jewish organizations have found themselves in need of financial rescue this year; more than a few have cast their predicaments in life and death terms. In at least one case, it’s no exaggeration. Hatzalah of the Rockaways and Nassau County, which answers about 3,000 emergency calls annually, is facing a quarter million dollar deficit for 2009 and is urgently asking for help. “We are at a real deficit of $250,000,” Rabbi Elozer Kanner, one of the Hatzalah coordinators, told The Jewish Star. “The bank is borderline overdrawn from day to day. We release dribs and drabs to pay our bills based on what is in the bank.” Hatzalah had $10,000 in the bank as of Friday, he said. Perhaps to demonstrate that from adversity arises opportunity, a young leadership group  has formed and will hold five simultaneous parlor meetings on Sunday in Cedarhurst, Woodmere and North Woodmere. The purpose is “to reach out to the people who will be the pillars of the community in the next 20 years,” explained Moshe Ratner, a member of the committee and a Hatzalah volunteer. Most members of the committee are not Hatzalah members. “There is a whole committee of young men who are stepping up to the plate and saying, ‘What can we do to help?’ Its really very gratifying,” said Rabbi Kanner, who bears much of the fundraising burden himself. Mendy Haas, Shalom Jacobs, Alon Goldberger, Aron Solomon, Avi Goldstein, Moishe Reich, Sholom Jacobs, Uri Dreifus, Avi Dreyfuss, Ushi Klein, Elliot Gluck, Jeremy Frenkel, Dovi Faivish, Yisroel Wasser, David Sokol, Moishe Reich and Avi Kahn are also on the committee. Two others, Meir Krengel and Avi Davis, are also Hatzalah volunteers. Most of the group lives in Cedarhurst and Woodmere, where fundraising efforts are being concentrated, “because a lot of the support for the [annual Hatzalah] barbeque doesn’t come from here,” explained Ushi Klein, 33. “The age group at the barbeque is usually much more mature.” Rabbi Kanner agreed. “Traditionally, much of our support came from Far Rockaway, Lawrence and from [the] middle-aged and older,” he said. “Young people are facing the challenges of tuition, families, parnasah [livelihood] problems and, what should I tell you? They’re obviously finding it hard.” Only twenty percent of families in the Hatzalah database have written a check to the organization this year; overall fundraising is down about thirty percent in 2009, Rabbi Kanner said. In addition to the overall drop in contributions, the deficit is also attributable to the recent purchase by Hatzalah of a site in Woodmere where a new ambulance garage and training center is planned. $200,000 was raised for the purchase; another $400,000 was taken from the operating budget and only some was replaced. Two ambulances, including one that is brand new, are currently parked outside the Edward Avenue Shul, just off Peninsula Boulevard. Hatzalah would like to get them indoors, both in order to protect the vehicles, which are valued at about half a million dollars, and to protect “medications on board the ambulances [that] are sensitive to extremes of heat and cold,” said Rabbi Kanner. In addition, snowfall slows ambulance response, he said, when ambulances are parked outside. “When you have the ambulance inside, you come and you drive off,” rather than first having to brush the snow off, he explained. Hatzalah will have a hearing before the Hempstead Board of Zoning Appeals in November. If it goes well then a groundbreaking and a fundraising campaign will follow, Rabbi Kanner said. “If neither the community at large, nor an individual [steps up] to the plate then we will not be able to build this building.” The garage portion of the facility is to be named after Mark Davidman, a”h, a Hatzalah member who was killed in a motorcycle accident and “is sorely missed,” Rabbi Kanner said. He expects to name the training facility after a different individual designated by a donor. “Although we look forward to building a new building, we’ll always remember with gratitude the hospitality that has been provided to our ambulances by the Edward Avenue shul,” Rabbi Kanner added. The young leadership committee of Chevrah Hatzalah doesn’t plan to stop with the parlor meetings,  Ushi Klein explained. “My hope is to form a young initiative committee for Hatzalah to host a separate event every year specifically targeted to these communities and to people who don’t normally go to the barbeque at The Sands.” Klein is grateful to Hatzalah for treating his daughter after an accident in the home one Friday night last year and hopes others will attend the parlor meetings on Sunday evening and bring their checkbooks. “Whatever they can give will be appreciated,” he said. “It’s not so much dollars and cents as community-wide support — that’s what we’re looking for,” Ratner said. “Everyone will agree that there is a very large younger crowd moving in, and they seem to take it for granted that, wherever you move from, Hatzalah is just a resource in the community. As people move in, the call volume goes up, and it translates into money. Every oxygen mask, every diesel fill-up ... it’s never been like this ... even the hospitals are surprised. They think we’ve changed our destinations. We haven’t changed anything. We’re just going there more often.”