A local volunteer EMS department recently earned a grant of over $4,000 awarded to them by South River EMC, funds that will help them equip a recently acquired quick response vehicle.
Last Friday, Suttontown EMS was presented a check by energy company officials thanks to its Operation Round Up grant prorgram.
Operation Roundup comes from funds contributed by customers, who choose to have their electric bills rounded up by a quarter, money deposited into a grant account. That grant money is then distributed to non-profit organizations or public institutions who help serve health, safety, educational or recreational needs of the community within the company’s service area.
“We were blessed enough to be able to get it,” noted Bradley Jackson, chief of the Suttontown EMS in a recent interview. “We’ve gotten help from them quite a bit over the years.”
Jackson said being awarded grant funding starts with applying.
“You go through the application process to fill out what you’re trying to do with the funds, and then you submit that application. Their board (South River Community Assistance Corporation) looks over it, and within roughly a month or so, they call you and let you know if you’ve received it or not. “
The grants are awarded quarterly in the months of March, June, September and December. The local EMS was one of 11 non-profit organizations to receive grants for June, including Life Line of Sampson.
Suttontown’s crew decided to use the funds for the installation of emergency warning lights on its new quick response vehicle.
“Whenever we’re heading to emergency calls or if we’re on the scene, these lights can provide lighting for us at night to be able to see better,” Jackson said … “especially if we’re sitting on the side of the road, people coming down the road can see us a lot better.”
The vehicle came from the Sampson County Sheriff’s Office, given to Suttontown EMS in May. Prior to it becoming a QRV, the Sheriff’s Office used it as a K-9 vehicle.
“With county vehicles that are surplus (past its service life), they can transfer to a non-profit in the county,” Jackson explained. “Once it has reached its service life with the county, if there’s a department that needs a vehicle, they can transfer it to them at no cost to that department. The only thing we had to take care of is the registration tag.”
Lavelle Jackson, purchasing and contracting officer at the Sampson County Finance Department, helped facilitate the transfer of the vehicle over to the Suttontown EMS.
Having a quick response vehicle allows emergency services to provide immediate on-scene care to those who need it, while also quickly deploying emergency service members through areas that may take more time for ambulances to travel through, like congested traffic on a busy highway or interstate, the EMS chief noted.
“Time is of the essence,” he said. “You might have somebody who’s having chest pain, or having a heart attack, somebody goes into cardiac arrest. The sooner we can get to them, the quicker we can get care started to give them hopefully a better outcome. A quick response vehicle has every other capability that an ambulance has; you just can’t transport someone in it. But with it, we can kind of spread our units around and have someone start providing care for the person who’s sick or injured, prior to the ambulance getting there.”
In thanks to the grant, along with the improvements made to the new quick response vehicle in their possession, Jackson emphasized that Suttontown EMS will continue to support its community in their time of need, just like the community has supported the staff.
Applications for the Operation Round Up Grants are currently open for the next quarterly period of September. The deadline for applications is Aug. 14 at 5 p.m.