Ambulance services across Canada often send their old ambulances to public auction when they are retired from active service. These "retired" trucks typically sell for around $6000, a sum which translates to mere pennies in the pocket of a municipal or provincial government. These ambulances are retired based on pre-determined mileages or years of service, and often do not reflect their remaining functional life.

Just a few years ago, a paramedic from the City of Ottawa submitted a proposal to the city's EMS to have their most recently retired ambulances donated to a charitable cause rather than go to the annual auction. The recipients were to be Paramedics for Children, a volunteer-based rudimentary paramedic organization serving remote areas of Honduras and aiming to develop first-generation emergency medical services in isolated regions of neighbouring Central America. The donation of these ambulances was to cost the city government nothing more than simply forfeiting the almost negligible profit from the sale of these trucks. Beyond that, all the necessary logistics, time, and travel expenses required to deliver the trucks to Honduras were to be entirely covered by volunteer contribution. 

This proposal was immediately rejected by the Ottawa Paramedic Service. Sadly, their policies couldn't allow for such actions, nor would they be willing to accept the liabilities associated with donations of this nature!

Just a short time later, a newly-elected city councillor heard of this story and took great personal and professional interest in it. Encouraged by widespread public support, the councillor pursued the cause with vigorous determination. For more than one full year, the proposal remained unaddressed on the council's agenda. During this time, hope grew, volunteers were recruited, and plans went ahead to prepare for the transportation and donation of the ambulances. All of these hopes and dreams once again came to a crashing halt when the proposal was finally addressed and immediately rejected on the grounds that the government's budget wouldn't allow for it.

That was in November 2009. Today, just over a year later, the battered dream remains alive, and continues to grow. The efforts of the past few years seem to have reached a dead-end as far as any hope of acquiring an ambulance by donation. The most recent consolation offered by the city's government is that they are willing to bypass the auction and sell the truck to this cause at its appraised value.  All of the other pieces of the puzzle remain in place from previous efforts, and now the missing link is to come up with the funds to purchase this ambulance. 

That is why we have created WHEELS for LIFE. It's a project designed to harness the ordinary efforts and generosity of ordinary people, and transform them into extraordinary life changes for those without even the most basic emergency medical care.