Year of the Volunteer
United Hatzalah volunteers are everyday heroes who stop what they’re doing to respond to calls and save lives. These 6,000 volunteer medics have been on the frontline as first responders over the past 18 months, through COVID, the tragedy in Meron, rockets fired from Gaza, and the Surfside tragedy in Miami.
This year, we are honoring these heroes with our “Year of the Volunteer” – to celebrate their service and their sacrifice, highlight individual stories about why they choose to volunteer, and support them continuing to go out and save lives.
We are creating two new unique sponsorship opportunities as part of the Year of the Volunteer – $180 to sponsor an individual volunteer to take part in a weekend retreat with their fellow volunteers, and $3,650 to sponsor a call every day for the entire Year of the Volunteer.
Join us as we celebrate these volunteers, hear their stories, and support them to save more lives.
How You Can Help
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FROM OUR VOLUNTEERS
“In my community, being a woman, a teacher, a medic and an ambucycle driver empowers me to influence change for future generations. “
Sana Mahmeed, Medic in Umm al-Fahm
“Serving as one of the few Jewish members of United Hatzalah in Eastern Jerusalem alongside my Arab colleagues is an inspiration and provides hope that we can unite for the greater cause of saving lives!”
Josh Wander, East Jerusalem
“I am blessed to be a part of Ten Kavod, an amazing project for the elderly. Once a week, I visit people that anxiously await for us to arrive, and we do a weekly check of their blood pressure and sugar levels. They were so excited to see us to share their happy or sad stories- they loved the quality time together. This project definetly taught me how much we need to be there for them, emotionally more than medically.”
Jennifer Attias, Moshav Granot Hagalil
“My family and I devote our time to be in United Hatzalah to help people, as it is mentioned in the all holy books, “Whoever saves a life, saves the world entire”
Rania Abu Shaba’an, Ein Rafa
FROM OUR GLOBAL SUPPORTERS
“The updates of our adopted medics saving a life are the most important emails in our inbox; They’re the best! We’re excited to partner with our medics to save more lives this year again. Thanks to you we’re saving lives too.”
Daniel & Alicia Yacoby, Ramat Hasharon, Israel
“It’s really heartwarming to see such a united effort on behalf of everyone in the state of Israel. We feel very grateful to be a part of it.”
Anna and Ilya Brodksy, New Jersey
“United Hatzalah is free for every service it provides, the money you give is spent very efficiently and donations keep the organization running! And Muslims, Jews and Christians are working together to save lives!”
Dr. Joel and Adele Sandberg, Florida
“The magic of United Hatzalah is: no matter how fraught the circumstances, we continually affirm that our diversity is our strength as we weave each fabric of Israeli society – all faiths, religions, sects, genders and all denominations – into a single tapestry with one holy mission: pikuach nefesh – saving lives.”
Mark Donig, Northern California
“In my opinion, the fact that we still feel Divine Protection in Israel despite all the difficult events that we have gone through, is thanks to people like those of United Hatzalah, who help anyone who needs it, at any time and with any means available!”
Jean-Lou Wolf, Paris, France
Support a Volunteer
Sponsor a Medic for a Weekend Retreat
Sponsor a medic to attend a weekend retreat with their family.
$180
€ / ₪ / £ / C$
Save One Life
Help save a life and you have helped save an entire world!
$500
€ / ₪ / £ / C$
Sponsor a Daily Emergency Response Call for an Entire Year
1 emergency response call per day for an entire year. The cost of a single emergency response call is approximately $10.
€ / ₪ / £ / C$
Sponsor a New EMT
Outfit 1 new EMT for 1 year. Afford them the equipment, supplies, and training they need to save lives.
$9,600
€ / ₪ / £ / C$
Send a Message to the Volunteers
“Thank you to all of the United Hatzalah volunteers!”
“Angels in orange. Each of you. Thank you!”
“Each volunteer is a walking inspiration.”
Messages to Volunteers
Over the past 18 months, United Hatzalah has been on call 24/7 to help the people of Israel, from all walks of life, receive the medical care they need. Our services have continued to innovate in spite of the challenges thrown at us. Between the continuation and ups and downs of the Covid pandemic, rockets being rained on Israel, the horrible Meron tragedy, the horrific Surfside disaster, and our everyday emergencies, the last few months have been a whirlwind.
In 2020/2021, responding to everyday medical emergencies remained at our core, but we also launched new and timely services including transportation for homebound citizens to vaccination centers, a humanitarian center, as well as responded to mass casualty incidents in Israel and abroad. Naturally, this forced us to reprioritize our spending during this period.
Critical investments, usually made annually, like training courses for volunteer medics or renovations of our volunteer centers (the majority of which double as public bomb shelters) were stopped to ensure we could meet immediate needs. This is not sustainable if our organization is to flourish long term.
Our focus now is to rebuild and secure our future. That means we need to invest in the fundamental building blocks of our organization. We must ensure we are training new volunteer medics; we need our vehicles in working order; we need to evolve our infrastructure to scale our dispatch capability at a moment’s notice; and we need to ensure we have ample medical supplies.
Volunteer of the Month
As part of the Year of the Volunteer, United Hatzalah will recognize a different volunteer each month and award that volunteer a weekend away with their family.
At the end of each month, there will be a raffle of the volunteers who are most active in each chapter across the country.
The volunteer of the month for January 2022 is Eliasaf Bagdari
Eliasaf Bagdari is 35-years-old, he is married and has five children ranging from 12-years-old to 8 months old. Eliasaf has been volunteering with the organization for the past two years since he graduated from his EMT training course. “It has been my life’s dream to become a first responder. Ever since I was always a child I’ve wanted to be involved in medicine and help others. I very much enjoy helping others and find that it gives meaning to my day-to-day routine.” To read more about Eliasaf and the work he does please click here.
