KVRS members have been extremely busy adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic. Fortunately we have a relatively good inventory of PPE. Our members have been learning and adapting to frequent and major changes in clinical protocols and operational guidelines as the outbreak has progressed. Our volunteers have not shied away from their duty obligations and are still staffing ambulances continuously. We are definitely seeing COVID-19 in the community. Our overall call volume has actually been down about 30%, but we are seeing critically sick patients more often.
We realize that many of our supporters are financially stressed, and we will be delaying our Spring fund drive. We have always been disciplined about maintaining contingency funds to get us through short periods of unexpected community hardship, but that will only go so far. It will not be long before we’ll have to ask you to be there for us so that we can be there for you.
In the meantime, some industrious community members are helping us in brand new ways, like donating their stashes of PPE or 3-D printing new PPE for us. We are accepting such donations via the city’s Volunteer Resources Office (VRO). Please contact the VRO at volunteer@vbgov.com or 757-385-4722 if you’d like to help.