At Thanksgiving time, the Lake Placid Volunteer Ambulance Service would like to express our appreciation to the community for its support in 2019 and for more than 40 years.

First, we appreciate the quality service of our volunteer and paid staff, who have responded to about 1,000 calls already this year. LPVAS appreciates the financial donations from individuals and businesses to benefit LPVAS, the Ice Out Benefit and supporting our annual Christmas tree sale held at 388 Mill Pond Drive. We would also like to acknowledge Sen. Betty Little, memorial donations, the Kingsley Foundation, town of North Elba and especially the Uihlein Foundation.

Acknowledgment of gifts in kind go to LPVAS Medical Director Dr. Michael Pond, Doug Hoffman, John Huntlinger, the Lake Placid Police Department, fire department, village highway, electric and water departments, North Elba Highway Department, our faithful ice meisters, families who choose LPVAS for memorial gifts and mutual aid support from Saranac Lake, Keene and Wilmington ambulance squads.

Each year we continue with skills nights, refresher courses and training to keep our members current with EMS procedures. We provide stand-bys at the Lake Placid Horse Shows, ORDA World Cup events (which we are currently doing for three weeks), Ironman, marathons, fire department activities, service group functions, and Lake Placid school events. We participate in the village parades. We welcome new members who wish to serve the community.

We wish to recognize the late Arthur Volmrich, who made his last call in 2019.

We invite you to check out the quality Christmas trees and wreaths that the Downes Family Tree Farm provides us for sale between Thanksgiving and Christmas. All our benefits for this year’s Christmas tree sale, annual fund and Ice Out Benefit will go toward funding our aging vehicles.

A blood drive will be held at the station, Dec. 27 in the afternoon.

Please remember to put numbers by your homes and places of business so that we can find you easily.

Special note this year: There will not be an annual appeal fund this winter season. We are switching back to our summer time appeal as was originally done in the 1980s. If you would like to donate for 2019, we thank you! (We didn’t want to appeal to you two times in one year.)

Here’s to a safe winter ahead.

Larry Brockway

Lake Placid Volunteer Ambulance Service