Crown Heights Hatzalah to Build Headquarters

For 45 years, Hatzalah of Crown Heights has served the Crown Heights community. Twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year without exception, Hatzalah has been there, saving the lives of countless individuals and providing critical assistance and assurance to so many more.

With the rapid growth and expansion of the Crown Heights community KA”H, keeping up with the increasing demand, Hatzalah has to take things to a new level.

Hatzalah’s logistical needs are complex. Careful coordination is required to quickly get vehicles and personnel to any location in the neighborhood. Response vehicles must be constantly stocked with adequate power, fuel, and critical supplies. When lives are at stake, there is no time to waste.

For decades, Hatzalah has done all this with a piecemeal infrastructure spread across a collection of randomly available offices, basements and storage units. Its ambulances are parked on various streets, subject to the tides of Brooklyn congestion and parking frustrations.

With your help, that’s about to change. Hatzalah of Crown Heights is proud to formally announce that in conjunction with the Hatzalathon campaign next week, Hatzalah of Crown Heights will be launching a $2,500,000 building campaign, so finally, Hatzalah will have a much-needed headquarters which will enable them to serve you better. With a centralized home base, Hatzalah will be able to get to you faster than ever before.

With a new state-of-the-art headquarters, Hatzalah will reach a new level of growth and professionalism. The 10,000 sq. foot center to be built on Albany Avenue and E. New York Avenue, will boast a comprehensive command center and centralized dispatch and call abilities, as well as a large medical supply room and oxygen chamber. These will improve efficiency and professionalism. A customized in-house training facility, adequate administrative offices, and a boardroom mean Hatzalah personnel can devote more time and focus to meeting the community’s unique needs and remaining at the cutting edge of service and care. Finally, two ambulance bays will provide a home for the Hatzalah ambulances that have become the very symbol of life and Ahavas Yisroel in our community.

Improved facilities and logistical abilities for Hatzalah means faster response times and better care in case of an emergency, chas v’shalom. It means greater ability for Hatzalah to incorporate technological advances in first-response care, and ultimately, more lives saved.

It also means increased menuchas hanefesh for the community in general. As the Rebbe said in a sichah in 1984, Hatzalah is not just about tending to emergencies, chas v’shalom, but about providing a community with the calming knowledge that Hatzalah is there: “When a person knows that there is a Hatzalah ambulance that can take someone quickly to the doctor and to the cure—that itself has a calming effect and prevents a person from needing such services to begin with” (Likkutei Sichos vol. 26, p. 392).

Later in the sichah, after expressing the hope that the coming of Moshiach would render Hatzalah’s services unnecessary, the Rebbe famously implored the public to generously donate to the noble cause of Hatzalah: “Being that Hatzalah is such a crucial organization, for “one who saves one Jewish life is considered to have saved the entire world … we must find ways to collect money for the cause. In this country, it is customary to make … an “appeal” to generate publicity and get everyone involved and to participate…” (p. 393 in the sichah).
Now Hatzalah turns to each individual to come out for the benefit of the entire community. The new Hatzalah headquarters will change the face of Hatzalah—and will serve the entire Crown Heights and Anash community —in a very real way.

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