Due to dwindling funding and donations, the Glendale Volunteer Ambulance Corps has been forced to downsize its headquarters. The nonprofit is asking for the community’s support at a fundraiser this Saturday. Forum Newsgroup photo by Jeremiah Dobruck.
As grants, government funding and local donations have dried up, the Glendale Volunteer Ambulance Corps has been forced to cut costs and try to find any support they can from the community.
Samantha Gunning, a captain at the corps, said the nonprofit has lost tens of thousands of dollars of funding over the past few years.
It’s donations, grants and allocations from local politicians she used to rely on.
On Saturday, the nonprofit is holding a $15 per plate pasta dinner hoping to fill in some of those dollars that have disappeared.
But the loss of money has already hit the corps. It’s forced them to move from its roomy headquarters on Myrtle Avenue to a 400-square- foot building on Central Avenue.
“We’re doing what we have to to survive,” Gunning said.
The captain explained that the corps used to count on almost $30,000 from their local politicians allocated through member items.
But Gov. Andrew Cuomo has cracked down on those expenditures, labeling them pork.
The result is Cuomo reigning in some spending—this year he trumpeted cutting $640,000 out of the final budget by vetoing member items—but local organizations often bearing the brunt.
This year, Cuomo gutted 126 member items, but against the odds, the Glendale Volunteer Am- bulance Corps made it through.
It received member item money from the state—a total of $3,000.
The corps squeaked by with member item money in the city council as well.
Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley, the area’s representative has consistently given between $5,000 and $2,000 to the corps each year.
Her two predecessors gave roughly that much, too.
Despite receiving the least of any council member in Queens this year, Crowley did keep the corps in her budget.
But the $3,500 she allocated in the 2013 city budget also doesn’t really make a dent toward paying for the corps’ $115,000 budget— most of which goes toward insurance, Gunning said.
“We’re basically solely based on donations from the community,” she said.
But those gifts have dwindled as much as the government funding. Gunning said they used to take in $30,000 to $40,000 from an annual donation drive, but that’s turned into about $10,000 due to the ripple affects of a struggling economy.
“It’s nothing different than what’s hurting everybody,” Gunning explained.
She’s hoping a fundraiser with a lower price point like Saturday’s pasta dinner can get the community energized around them.
“We’re hoping to really pack the event,” she said.
The pasta dinner will be on Saturday, July 28 at United Methodist Church at 66th Place and Central Avenue.
It runs from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. with tickets available at the door.
The cost is $15 for those 12 and up, $10 for anyone 6 to 11 and free for anyone 5 and under.
By Jeremiah Dobruck
j.dobruck@theforumnewsgroup.com
