Scarsdale Volunteer Ambulance Corps Head David Raizen to Receive Scarsdale Bowl Award

David Raizen, President of the Scarsdale Volunteer Corps is the 2014 Scarsdale Bowl recipient and the youngest person to receive this honor. 

The Scarsdale Bowl is Scarsdale’s highest award and it is awarded annually to one who has given unselfishly of time, energy, and effort for the welfare of the community. David Raizen certainly lives that description.  For 40 years – since he was 16 years old - David has worked tirelessly to save the lives of Scarsdale’s residents both as a volunteer emergency medical technician and through his work as the President of the Scarsdale Volunteer Ambulance Corps.

The Scarsdale Bowl was initiated in 1943 to recognize an individual’s outstanding volunteer efforts of behalf of the residents of Scarsdale. The Scarsdale Bowl Committee, a diverse group of 15 community volunteers, selects the recipient after reviewing many worthy candidates who are nominated by members of the community. Brodsky stated, “The committee was so impressed by the selfless dedication David has brought to his forty years of service to the community and recognized that every resident can sleep a little sounder knowing that should they or a loved one need emergency medical assistance it is only a few minutes away. The quiet steadfastness of David’s efforts, over four decades, to create and maintain a state of the art medical emergency response team has been nothing short of extraordinary.”

Maybe it was because David grew up here in Scarsdale that he caught the ‘volunteer bug” early. While a student at Scarsdale High School, David took a first aid and CPR course in 1975.  Not old enough to be a emergency medical technician, David started doing carpentry work and other odd jobs around the place. David couldn’t wait to be allowed to ‘ride’ as part of the ambulance crew but you had to be 18 to be a to be an EMT.  David spent two years helping out and taking his training – and took his first ride on his 18th birthday.  Forty years later David is still helping out, still riding – and has worked over these past 40 years to make SVAC one of the finest ambulance corps in the county.  Through his leadership the corps has grown from 25 volunteers to 75. He upgraded the level of service SVAC provides to advanced life support and kept them on the cutting edge of technology.  The soft-billing program (SVAC will bill a patient’s insurer and accepts whatever the insurer pays as full payment) he put in place saves Scarsdale residents tens of thousands of dollars every year.  He worked very hard to help build the new headquarters for the members SVAC – because they deserved a decent place to work. But David does so much more as the committee learned from the recommendations it received.  He has mentored Scarsdale High School students in the emergency medical technician program and Scarsdale Fire Explorers providing them with encouragement and training – and teaching them the value of volunteerism. He is always looking out for the residents without us being aware – such as having the SVAC ambulances at a particularly hot graduation with ice water and Gatorade and cooling fans at the ready for the many folks attending graduation, without being asked.  When storms have struck and taken out communication systems David has made his way to the Public Safety Headquarters to help out and coordinate communications so that emergency medical aid would always be available to our residents. 

David Raizen will be honored at the Scarsdale Bowl Dinner Wednesday, April 9th at the newly renovated Fountainhead in New Rochelle.  Anyone wishing to attend may request an invitation by sending an email to scarsdalebowldp@gmail.com. It is a wonderful and uplifting evening – come to celebrate David and all those who volunteer to make their community a better place.