Doing well, doing good

We regard Benjamin Franklin as the founder of the first American volunteer fire company, a Philadelphia bucket brigade formed in 1736 and known as the Union Fire Company

Volunteer fire companies are among the purest of American concepts. Sure, they exist in other countries, but the American concept of neighbors helping neighbors really rings the bell and sounds the siren when you think of local men and women dropping everything to run to the aid of someone else in town.

And as World War II ended and people moved from the cities to the suburbs, the growth in volunteer fire and ambulance companies continued apace to meet the demands of people far from the city firehouses. Today as you drive through Smalltown USA, take a look around and you're sure to see a sharp-looking bunch of apparatus at the ready.

That's small towns for you.  But we'd be wrong to figure that sort of community approach doesn't happen in the teeming streets of Bedford-Stuyvesant, one of the toughest sections of Brooklyn, New York.

It's cramped and crowded there, full of people and cars and all of them moving in the streets at once. And sad to say, in 1988, at the corner of Marcus Garvey Blvd. and Greene Ave. a young lady was hit by a car, and passed away before medical help could get through to help her.

That young lady was the niece of James “Rocky” Robinson, who grew up in the area and was known as one of the first rappers and as a respected EMS responder.

And the tragedy of losing his niece moved him to do something purely American - taking action rather than just talking action.

Rocky founded the Bedford-Stuyvesant Volunteer Ambulance Corps at the very intersection where his niece was struck by the car. He passed away at 79 last Friday, but he left a mighty legacy.

“That (loss) was the last straw for him,” said his son, Antoine Robinson. Antoine, 34, serves his community as both a career Fire Department of New York paramedic, as did his father, and also as chief of volunteer ambulance corps his father started. He helps new members achieve the certification to become EMTs.

"Rocky" Robinson, in his off-duty hours, listened to FDNY calls on a scanner and responded on a bicycle with a backpack full of medical supplies. At first, he had but two other members in the company.

He and the other members recruited volunteers willing to serve their neighborhood, and the company grew over the years.

“He was giving them the training they needed to join NYC EMS. It pretty much exploded from there," his son said.

At first, the company set up office space and then moved to a corner lot which also served as an open air drug supermarket. But that was to change when Robinson and his crew built a trailer on the derelict lot to serve as a station.

“He said, ‘If they can sell death and destruction from this corner, why can’t we change peoples lives on this corner?’” according to Antoine.

Members of the company

Readers of the New York DAILY NEWS were generous donors to the cause, as were viewers of the Sean Hannity television show. Hannity did a segment on his show about the BSVAC, and donations came in.

“He did a lot and made the people realize that there’s more to taking care of people than ignoring him,” Robinson's sister, Catherine Brown, told the newspaper. “He helped a lot of people get back their lives. He turned a lot of them away from drugs. If you didn’t have the money he would help you. He was an amazing man.”