The Medic One Foundation
"So, when they started the project back in 1969, when they first started it was a research project that they put together to see if they could in fact, teach lay people to do what a physician could do in the field. And that project you probably know was federally funded, it was a three year grant. And so halfway through, that grant was stopped. So they didn’t have enough money to complete the three year grant. So they went to the community in a really big way, Chief Vickery and Dr. Cobb. And it became just a huge grass roots effort. Kids your age [13] were collecting coins, barber shops were giving haircut discounts for and raising money that way, but people just rallied tremendously because they knew that they were seeing results, that lives were being saved. So they wanted to keep it alive, the city wouldn’t pick it up. Actually the city wanted to bring in a private ambulance company. So the community raised more than they needed to keep the project going and actually the money kept coming in. So with that money, Dr. Cobb decided to set up a foundation" Jan Sprakeo
The creation of the Medic One foundation was a landmark in the history of Medic One. The foundation allowed the program to spend money in a way that supported its mission, without decisions being based on the public or city's choices. This freedom has allowed Medic One to keep improving at a very fast rate, one of the ways Medic One continues to be hold the highest survival rates for cardiac arrest.
|
"Most of our money comes from individuals. They come from a group of individuals probably a lot of them have served at some point in time or their family members have been served and they are grateful for that. That’s probably our strongest supporter. I looked at it last night, about 4% comes from corporations and businesses which is typical of non-profit. Our individuals are probably 90% of our income, just from individuals in the community. We don’t get any federal funding, we don’t get any local funding as well, and we don’t have any program service were we get feedback for service. It’s just purely donations. We raise about $2,000,000 a year. And all of the goes back into the program, the research and training." Jan Sprake |