Washington Ambulance Association gets new HQ
WASHINGTON — What began as a conversation last spring has just turned into a reality — the town’s ambulance association, now housed inside the Washington Volunteer Fire Department, is getting its own home.
The new headquarters, at 92 Bee Brook Road, “gives us our own space to be more comfortable, and has sleeping quarters so our responders can truly be on call in the building,” said Heidi Wilson, chief of the Washington Ambulance Association, known as WAA.
Ericson Insurance Advisors, who currently owns the building where the new headquarters will be, is selling it to the town of Washington for $1 million. Ericson has relocated its offices to
Titus Road in Washington Depot.
The sale, which is expected to take place early this week, was made possible through private donors and American Rescue Plan Act funds.
Washington First Selectman Jim Brinton said the new headquarters will be treated like every other town building.
“The town will cover insurance, maintenance, utilities — things of that nature,” Brinton said.
Johnson calls the new headquarters “a dream come true” that she said she never thought could happen.
“We are a small nonprofit and we are not a billing ambulance service,” said Johnson, about the 80-year-old independent nonprofit organization with nearly 30 members. The WAA serves as the primary emergency ambulance service for the town of Washington and provides mutual aid to New Milford, Roxbury, Warren, Kent and Bantam.
“We only exist because of our unpaid volunteers and the generosity of our community,” Johnson added.
Falling into place
The WAA has been headquartered at the town’s fire house at 109 Bee Brook Road since the firehouse was built in the early 1990s. Prior to that, it was located in a variety of buildings in Washington through the years.
The conversation that started the wheels turning for the new headquarters began last June when a donor, who wishes to be kept anonymous, first heard about it while chatting with Johnson.
“I gave him a tour of our headquarters and told him what our goals are, and the conversation shifted toward ‘what if you can have your own headquarters?’” she said. “All the pieces then started to fall into place quickly.”
The donor approached the town with the idea of purchasing the building if enough funds were raised.
The town agreed, and in October, a challenge was issued in town by donors to see who would be interested in contributing.
“My primary donor said they would contribute $250,000 and tried to encourage others to give at a higher level than what they usually had done and/or support it for the first time,” Johnson said.
Beginning in October, donors put together several fundraisers and by yearend, $1 million had been raised privately.
Additionally, $250,000 of ARPA funds were put toward the purchase.
More space, renovations
Aside from having much more storage space, the new headquarters, at 6,660 square feet, will enable the WAA to provide more services to the community, Johnson said.
Currently, when the WAA needs to have meetings or hold classes, it has to reserve the space with the fire department.
“Since we are in the fire house, the fire department always has the priority on that,” Johnson said.
“We’ve said for a long time that the fire department and ambulance services
work really really well together but they simply have outgrown that building. They’re all extremely busy, and this was an opportunity,” Brinton added. “Sharing the building with the fire department can be strategically difficult because both services are constantly training.”
In the new location, the WAA will be able to hold more classes and community events without any conflicts. Additionally, the WAA would like to train more members to teach CPR and first aid.
Johnson said her longterm goal is to make the new headquarters a regional training center for EMS.
“We’re hoping that we generate a lot of interest from this move in having this nice space,” Johnson said.
She said she hopes more people may want to become certified in the WAA’s services, and hopefully they can fill some voids in the surrounding towns.
Renovations need to be done to the new headquarters prior to moving in, Johnson said.
“Renovations to the
main building involve moving a few walls around in one space to make for a larger training area with proper storage for all of our needs,” Johnson said.
Additionally, the WAA is building bays off the back of the new building to park two ambulances, and one additional bay will be built for its future needs.
The WAA is accepting donations, which will go toward retrofitting the building and customizing the building to suit its needs. Donations can be made through washingtonambulance.org . Please indicate that the donation is exclusively for the new headquarters.
Johnson said she’s extremely grateful to everyone who played a role in making the new headquarters happen.
“This shows that people really do appreciate all of the sacrifices we make every day in our efforts to provide this vital service,” Johnson said. “This is our first real headquarters to call our own.”