History

Our organization has a rich heritage of providing prompt, professional emergency service to the town of Penfield for more than 50 years.

The Penfield Volunteer Emergency Ambulance Service, Inc. was founded in 1966. Prior to our origination, people would need to call for an ambulance from the city of Rochester whenever one was needed in Penfield. After a number of serious calls where it took an ambulance over 30 minutes to arrive on scene, the Penfield Lions Club formed a committee to investigate the feasibility of a volunteer ambulance service for Penfield. The committee determined that it was feasible and raised $15,000 to purchase our first ambulance. The Penfield Ambulance responded to 160 calls during our first year in operation.

Initially, we were only able to staff our ambulance on evenings and weekends. Gradually, we were able to add a day at a time until we reached our goal of 24 hours, 7 day service. Soon after, we added a second ambulance. In 1977, we began training Critical Care Technicians and the Lions Club came through again with the purchase of a station wagon to be used as our critical care unit, Medic 6. In 1977, our Critical Care Unit merged with the Southeast Quadrant to cover the towns of Penfield, Perinton, Pittsford and East Rochester.

Our first facility was in an old nursery on Whalen Road. We built our first base on Jackson Road in 1967 and later expanded as the agency grew. In 2002, we demolished that structure and erected a new building that houses our current operation.

In September, 2017, the Penfield Ambulance received approval from the Monroe Livingston Regional Emergency Medical Advisory Committee (REMAC) to provide Advanced Life Support (ALS) services. To better serve our community, the Penfield Ambulance began staffing their ambulances with Paramedics on January 1, 2018, to directly provide ALS services. Penfield Ambulance thanks the current and former members of South East Quadrant for their dedication and support in providing ALS services in conjunction with Penfield Ambulance for the past 40 years.

To meet our increased call volume of over 4,000 calls annually, Penfield Ambulance maintains a fleet of 5 ambulances. Two to four ambulances are staffed by a combination of volunteer members and employees throughout a 24 hour day.

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