News from PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
Office of Communications
Stanhope Hall
Princeton, New Jersey 08544-5264
Telephone 609-258-3601; Fax 609-258-1301Feb. 19, 2001
Contact: Pam Hersh (609) 258-3018
University makes major contribution to rescue squad
Donation allows purchase of ambulance
Princeton, N.J. -- Princeton University has agreed to donate $155,000 to the Princeton First Aid and Rescue Squad, which will allow the vital volunteer organization to acquire a fully equipped ambulance. The donation is the largest single gift in the squad's history.
Princeton President Harold T. Shapiro said the gift recognized the "close and mutually beneficial relationship that has existed between the squad and the University for many years." The University also contributes $25,000 each year to the squad's operating expenses and makes in-kind donations, such as providing no-cost summer housing for two students who stay in Princeton to serve as rescue-squad volunteers.
The contribution for the ambulance "goes a long way toward providing financial stability to this organization, whose lifeblood is donations," said the squad's chief, Gregg Paulson, a Princeton alumnus. He and the group's president, Jonathan Slutzman, a Princeton senior, emphasized the symbiosis between the University and the squad, which was founded in 1939.
As of June 30, the squad had 26 active members affiliated with the University, representing more than one-third of its total membership. This includes 19 undergraduate students, two graduate students, one staff member and four alumni. The volunteer hours provided by the University students, alumni and staff "certainly enable Princeton Borough and Township to staff its emergency services primarily with volunteers," Paulson said. The squad has two paid emergency medical technicians working daytime hours Monday through Friday.
The University also puts a hefty demand on the squad's services. In 1999, the last year for which complete statistics are available, the squad answered 295 emergency calls for service at the University, representing more than 15 percent of its calls. In addition, the squad provides stand-by ambulance service for University events such as home football games and other athletic events, reunions, commencement activities, and visits by dignitaries. These stand-by services amount to an average of 600 work hours per year.
The squad also provides an education that is impossible to get from books or other life experiences, Slutzman said.
Although many people assume that undergraduates become involved in preparation for medical school, "this applies to many fewer of us than most people would think," said Paulson, a psychology major who now is getting a master's degree in emergency services management at MCP Hahnemann University.
"I stayed in Princeton after I graduated -- something that many seniors do not want to do -- largely to keep working with the squad," he continued. "My ties to both the function of the squad and to the individuals on the squad and in the community are very strong."
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