Bodega Bay ambulance fundraising still short as online effort draws to close

Time is running out on a crowd-funding campaign launched two months ago to help cover the cost of a new paramedic ambulance just acquired by the Bodega Bay Fire Protection District and set to go into service in the next few days.

The effort so far has helped the fire and rescue agency raise more than $7,000 online - far short of the stated $50,000 goal.

But the Indiegogo.com campaign has spurred close to $14,000 in donations made directly at the firehouse by people who weren’t interested in contributing through the web, Fire Chief Sean Grinnell said.

“If it comes via mail, there’s usually a card attached - a thank-you-letter kind of a card,” said Jennifer Crayne, the district’s administrative assistant. “And then a lot of people are surprised that we have to go through such measures to pay for an ambulance.”

The fire district financed the specialized $179,601 ambulance - discounted, because it was a manufacturer demonstration model - through a lease-purchase agreement that will be covered in part by two successive grants totaling $89,497 through Sonoma County’s hotel bed tax, a significant portion of which is brought into the county from tourism in the coastal area served by the agency, Grinnell said.

The district also received multiple $1,000 gifts and a $5,000 donation, along with other individual contributions, he said. Indiegogo reported 68 donations, from $10 to $1,000, and possibly higher, as of Friday.

The fundraising effort is geared to pay off the ambulance early and use the funds currently budgeted for loan repayment to cover other operational costs over the next three years, Grinnell said.

Though still more than $60,000 shy of the full amount needed to pay off its $186,601 ambulance loan, the department has now raised more than $36,000 in donations, including the contributions tied to the Indiegogo campaign, $10,000 from the Bodega Bay Firefighters Association and $3,300 generated by community fund-raising events sponsored by two local businesses, Chanslor Ranch and Sonoma Concierge.

The crowd-funding campaign, which ends a minute before midnight Monday, was one in a series of alternative, sometimes unusual fund-raising efforts pursued by the district after the failure last spring of a controversial ballot measure that would have added $200 more a year to the $524 tax bill most residents of the coastal fishing village already pay toward fire and emergency medical service.

County and district officials are also taking part in broader, long-term discussions aimed at resolving the financial woes of struggling fire service agencies around Sonoma County.

Officials in Bodega Bay say their situation is unique because the district is relatively small but provides advanced life support ambulance and rescue service to an expansive coastal area, assisting residents outside the district boundaries who aren’t taxed for the service as well as tourists who come from outside the area to enjoy the spectacular Sonoma Coast.

The Indiegogo campaign was the brainchild of district firefighter/paramedic Josh Perucchi and was launched Oct. 23. It got renewed attention with the district’s Oct. 10 rescue of a 4-year-old Santa Rosa boy who fell 250-feet off the edge of Bodega Head and survived, fire personnel said.

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.