Hatzalah

Recently, the hatzalah BBQ in our community was hosted at the Sands catering Hall in Long Beach. The dinner\BBQ was the epitome of Dinner Fund raisers. The food was in abundance. the speeches were short. They gave out awards to a select few. Each award took approx 1-2 minutes each. The message of the speeches were clear : "We save lives. We are volunteers. Our budget is audited by an independent acccountant and published for all to see. Please help us continue our work in case you need us." Hatzalah is an incredible organization. Each year, I feel compelled to run to the podium,grab the microphone and speak about what an incredible organization this is. I remember back to the day of last year's BBQ. It was about an hour until the BBQ started and the house was calm. All of a sudden , Nechama had a bad episode. Some of the Hatzalah members came from the BBQ , where they had been setting up. I guess that was the beginning of the end. We spent a few days in the hospital and were released to go home. A little over a month later, we went back after another episode. We spent over 5 weeks in the hospital and came home without Nechama. It is strange that more people don't give to hatzalah. When a crisis or trumatic experience (medical one) happens, you would give every penny in your posession to be able to call on Hatzalah. Knowing that Hatzalaha exists, brings a sense of security that you can't imagine. They must have come on dozens of calls for us over the last few years. Hatzalah members were awed by Nechama .Her smile....her sense of calm, no matter what was happening. Someone told us that they started to say tehillim for Nechama every day during her final hospital stay last summer and he has continued ever since. He said, they have seen all types of people in all types of situations but they never saw someone like Nechama. She was the calmest one of all of us.
Remember.please give to Hatzalah so, because their very existence is a tremendous source of comfort and security even if , g-d willing, we should never need them. And even more so even we ever do need them.