Atlantans Buy Ambulance for Israel
Atlantans Lowell and Laraine Fine have donated a $100,000 ambulance to Israel.
The donation to Magen David Adom, Israel’s version of the Red Cross, was celebrated with a dedication ceremony outside Ahavath Achim Synagogue on Friday, Nov. 25. The actual ambulance was brought to Buckhead for the ceremony before traveling to Jacksonville, Fla., to be shipped to Ashdod. The Fines will learn where the ambulance is deployed after it arrives in Israel.
Tammy Karu, the Southeast regional director for American Friends of Magen David Adom, said Lowell Fine was willing to donate a more expensive mobile intensive care unit, but MDA officials in Israel said they needed the standard ambulance more.
Fine said he and his wife were thinking about donating an ambulance, so they met with MDA and toured its Jerusalem facility in May during one of their many visits to Israel. When they returned to Atlanta, they were ready to make the donation.
“Both of us hope and pray that it will save a lot of lives, help to deliver a lot of babies and do a lot of good in this world, and that’s why we did it,” Fine said.
The ambulance dedication came a little more than a week after the groundbreaking in Ramla of MDA’s Marcus National Blood Services Center, the world’s first fully operational underground blood center, where Israel’s blood supply will be safe from rocket, biological and chemical attacks.
The center is named for Bernie and Billi Marcus, who donated $25 million of the estimated $110 million cost of the facility.
Lowell Fine insisted that Karu talk about the blood center during the ambulance ceremony.
comments