The Bedford-Stuyvesant Volunteer Ambulance Corps (BSVAC) is the nation’s first minority-run volunteer ambulance corps, founded in 1988 by two EMS workers, Captain James "Rocky" Robinson" and Specialist Joe Perez. For 26 years, "The Vollies" have both saved lives and changed lives in a community disproportionately affected by physical and economic trauma. When BSVAC first began operations, the neighborhood was ravaged by violence related to crack cocaine, and the response time in Bed-Stuy for city ambulances averaged about 30 minutes. Today, BSVAC responds to over 100 emergency calls a month with an average response time of less than 4 minutes. In addition to medical services, BSVAC has worked tirelessly to teach life-saving skills to Bed-Stuy residents and connect them to careers in emergency medicine. To date, over two thousand local residents have been trained through BSVAC CPR, first aid and EMT training programs. While Bed-Stuy has come a long way since the days of BSVAC's founding, the neighborhood still exhibits stark disparities. The rate of felony assaults in Bed-Stuy stood around 5.9 per 1,000 residents in 2013, as compared to 2.4 per 1,000 across the whole city. And in some of the Bed-Stuy census tracts, the median household income is just $19,000, about $33,000 less than the median in New York City as a whole. BSVAC treats gun shot and stabbing wounds every week, and our classroom is constantly packed with residents trying to start secure careers. Despite operating on a shoe-string budget, BSVAC extends its impact beyond Bed-Stuy as well, responding to Ground Zero on 9/11, to Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina, and to Haiti on three separate occasions after the earthquake in 2010.
