History

The Emergency Volunteer Services was formed in 1998 and operates under the direction of the City of Aurora Emergency Management Agency. Emergency Volunteer Services is the result of combining two long-time Aurora volunteer groups: the Citizen Radio Patrol (1974) and the Aurora Emergency Management Agency Volunteers (1960). The Citizen's Radio Patrol worked with the police department assisting officers as extra eyes and ears in Aurora neighborhoods by reporting suspicious activities to the police department. The Aurora Emergency Management Volunteers provided extra assistance, as needed, for different activities in Aurora, and supplied weather monitoring and support.

In 1998, the two groups combined under Aurora Emergency Management Agency and became known as the Emergency Volunteer Service. This new group continued to do all the things both groups had been doing for so many years, and Emergency Volunteer Services support has continued to grow since then. In 2003, the Aurora Emergency Management Agency started teaching Community Emergency Response Team classes to the public. These classes helped to bring in more volunteers, along with teaching participants how to be prepared for an emergency or disaster. In 2005, volunteers began teaching these classes and a deployable team was started with a purpose to assist the City of Aurora in the event of an emergency or disaster. And, in 2014, a ground search and rescue team was formed.

Today, Aurora Emergency Management Agency Emergency Volunteer Services group continues to support the City of Aurora in a multitude of ways. Volunteers are the first to be called by fire and police for on-scene assistance at accident scenes, with traffic control, and other issues extra hands are needed to get the job done. Both police and fire lean on the volunteers to facilitate special event details such as working concerts, parades, and other city events. Every day, the dedicated volunteers are there to answer the call and assist with: weather monitoring, communications, education, neighborhood patrol, traffic control, ground search and rescue, special event support, and emergency operations center support. For more than twenty-five years, volunteers have been a valuable resource for our police department, fire department, and the City of Aurora.