The Cornwall Volunteer Ambulance Corps will dissolve after 67 years of community service, and the New Windsor Ambulance will take over operations beginning July 1.

“It hurts," said Joe Reardon, chief of operations of Cornwall Ambulance. "This is where I’ve been for 11 years. It’s a family. We build a big family.”

Cornwall Ambulance will no longer provide service to the town of Cornwall or village of Cornwall-on-Hudson.

“It’s a new way of EMS, unfortunately. Volunteerism is a thing of the past almost because people need more than one job with the way the economy is,” Reardon said.

After facing staffing and financial issues in 2021, the town and village provided the ambulance company with a six-month municipal contract.

According to Cornwall Town Supervisor Joshua Wojehowski, it provided funding and required calls to be monitored and changes to be made. At the beginning of the year, when approached to renew that contract, the municipality was also presented a contract renewal for New Windsor EMS, which provides advanced life support in the town and village.

“By combining forces, we’re basically creating a strong organization that’s going to have municipal funding from both New Windsor and Cornwall. It’s also going to be funded by private insurance,” Wojehowski said. “We believe that this is the model that is going to be able to survive through all the changes that are going on.”

Reardon said Cornwall ambulance is donating one of their ambulances to New Windsor EMS. In addition, a new ambulance with Cornwall EMS lettering was also purchased to be stationed in Cornwall.

“We’ll have two ambulances down there, one in backup in case one breaks,” said Bill Horton, chairman of the board for New Windsor Ambulance. “At the bare minimum, it’ll be eight full-time equivalent staffing one BLS ambulance 24 hours a day.”

Although there is disappointment, members of Cornwall ambulance have been encouraged to apply to join New Windsor Ambulance.

“I don’t 100% think it was fair how it went down,” Reardon said. "I don’t think the public knew everything up front, but they’re still going to be in good hands.”

Cornwall’s contract with New Windsor EMS is for three years.

“It’s really kind of hard to say what’s going to happen in three years, but I think if nothing is changed and things are going well, we’re going to look to go with the same partnership we have,” Wojehowski said.