The City of Springfield honored with 2024 LMC City of Excellence Award

The city of Springfield received the League of Minnesota Cities 2024 City of Excellence Award for the under 5,000 population category Thursday at the League’s Annual Conference in Rochester. Springfield was honored for its ambulance service recruitment initiative. 

In 2019, the Springfield Ambulance Service encountered a critical need to build its emergency medical services (EMS) team. Down to six emergency medical technicians (EMTs) and emergency medical responders (EMRs), the ambulance service partnered with several community leaders to create a comprehensive recruitment initiative to encourage community members to join their team. 

The initiative included a series of informational meetings aimed at generating the interest of recruits along with newspaper articles and social media posts that shared the state of the Springfield Ambulance Service. Ambulance staff also encouraged local businesses to allow employees to participate in on-call duties during work hours. Springfield City Council voted to allow city staff members to carry out on-call responsibilities. Local high school students were also encouraged to enroll in weekend EMR classes. 

See complete article in this week's issue of the Springfield Advance-Press.