Colfax Rescue Squad plans spaghetti dinner May 5
PROTECTED CONTENT
If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.
Username and Password Help
Please enter your email and we will send you a password reset link.
By LeAnn R. Ralph
COLFAX — The Colfax Rescue Squad will be holding a spaghetti dinner on Sunday, May 5.
During the spaghetti dinner, area residents will be able to meet some of the Colfax Rescue Squad crew members as well as the new EMS director, said Chrystal Smith, director of the Colfax Rescue Squad.
The Colfax Village Board appointed Smith as the interim director of the rescue squad after the resignation of long-time director Don Knutson.
Knutson began working as the clerk-treasurer for the Village of Wheeler on January 2 of this year.
In addition, Knutson is working as a Synodically Authorized Minister (SAM) for the Colfax Rural Lutheran Parish, which includes Holden Church, North Running Valley Church and Norton Church, and is pursuing a course of study that will eventually result in Knutson becoming an ordained minister.
After appointing Smith as the interim director of the Colfax Rescue Squad, the Colfax Village Board appointed Smith as the director of the ambulance service, effective April 1.
Smith, who recently earned her paramedic certification, has worked for the Colfax Rescue Squad as an EMT for a little more than two years and began in January of 2022. She started working at the Colfax Rescue Squad shortly after she received her EMT basic license.
Smith, who has lived in Eau Claire for 16 years, has five children ages 13 (Anthony), 11 (Guiliana), 10 (Anabelle), 7 (Ezra) and 4 (Ella) as well as two dogs that are also a huge part of the family.
Smith grew up in what she describes as the tiny town of Proctor, Vermont, and lived there until she was 18 years old.
Proctor had a population of 1,763 in the 2020 census, which compares to Colfax’s population of 1,105.
New ambulance
The spaghetti dinner will be by free-will donation to help pay for equipment to install in the new ambulance that will be arriving this fall.
The Colfax Village Board accepted a bid in November of 2022 of $328,489, less $10,000 trade-in, for a new ambulance from Demers Ambulances at a final cost of $318,489.
The village board approved putting a $105,915 EMS Flex grant from the state of Wisconsin toward a new ambulance in October of 2022.
In addition to the nearly $106,000 from the grant, the Colfax Rescue Squad had $45,000 in the 2022 equipment budget and a $50,000 fund balance from the previous year, for a total of little more than $200,000 toward the cost of the ambulance.
Money for the EMS Flex grants came from federal money that Wisconsin received.
Knutson had initially applied for $238,000 in grant money.
Wisconsin officials decided to fund each of the requests at 40 percent so that all of the ambulance services that applied would receive some money.
Colfax has also received another state EMS grant for $24,390, and that money has been designated for the power cot that will go into the new ambulance.
The original plan was to replace the ambulance in 2019.
Since there is a two-year waiting time for a new ambulance, if the Colfax Rescue Squad had waited another two years to build up more money in the equipment fund before ordering an ambulance, then it would be another two years, perhaps the fall of 2026, before the village received a new ambulance.
The ambulance that will be replaced has a 2011 chassis. The box was new in 2005.
The spaghetti dinner at the Colfax Rescue Squad on Sunday, May 5, begins at 1 p.m. and runs until 6 p.m.
To-go dinners also will be available.
The Colfax Rescue Squad is located at 614C Railroad Avenue in Colfax.