HARDWICK – As the Hardwick Rescue Squad prepares to begin raising funds for a long-anticipated building to replace its undersized 1972 home on Creamery Road, they have received a grant of more $350,000 from the Hardwick Hospital Association (HHA).
A Card of Thanks from Hardwick Rescue in today’s issue notes, “The HHA donated their remaining funds, amounting to over $350k, to Hardwick Rescue in recognition of
the close ties between the two organizations over the past several decades.”
Hardwick Rescue’s Tim Nisbet said they are thankful for the funds from HHA, which come at a good time as they are getting ready to begin fundraising for their new facility.
Nisbet, who serves on the new building committee, said he’s been promoting the need for a new building for roughly 10 years because the current 54-year-old building was built only as a place to park the smaller ambulances in use then and has a meeting room.
Since then the organization has grown from handling about 200 calls in the early 1970s to more than 1,000 now, he said. Larger ambulances now barely fit in the bays and out of town volunteers and paid staff routinely sleep in the building that has no real facilities for that purpose.
With its gift to the rescue squad, Art Williams, said the five member HHA board unanimously agreed to give it their remaining funds from the sale of the long-gone Hardwick Hospital building that was on the site of the current police station,
HHA has supported local health organizations over the years, with gifts to the Hardwick Area Health Center and Hardwick Rescue, including for the current rescue squad building, said Williams.
HHA funds have been invested since the sale of the old hospital after it closed in 1973, but current interest rates are so low the fund hasn’t been growing, making the gift to the rescue squad appropriate, he said. The gift comes with no strings attached, though Nisbet said the rescue squad will use it for a new facility.
Hardwick Rescue has been planning for an expanded facility for four years now and more recently wrapping its needs into the facility being planned by the town to accommodate the public works department and fire department in the area where its current building is, said Nisbet.
Hardwick Rescue has never sent fundraising appeals to area residents, he said. Their expenses have been covered by fees from insurance, medicare, medicaid, town appropriations and unsolicited donations.
With the new $4 million facility being planned, the organization has been preparing for its first ever outreach to the public, said Nisbet. The funds from HHA add to a sizable amount of funds already saved by the organization, from which they plan to offer matches for new donations.
This donation of funds by the Hardwick Hospital Association comes 16 years after it donated the old health center building to the Town of Hardwick, which now serves as the home of the Hardwick Police Department.
HHA has had its last meeting, said Williams, with all five members agreeing to dissolve the organization and resign from the board after giving the last of its funds to the rescue squad.
Paul Fixx is editor of The Hardwick Gazette and lives in Hardwick.
