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06/03/2021 12:01 AMEven though Carmine Riccitelli, Jr.—who’s also known as Ricky to many in his hometown of East Haven—has been volunteering for decades, he was still surprised when he received a phone call from the East Haven Chamber of Commerce that he was nominated for Volunteer of the Year. Carmine has volunteered in a number of ways over the years, though this award focused on his volunteer work with the vaccination clinics.
“They called to ask me if I’d accept the nomination and wouldn’t tell me who nominated me,” says Carmine. “I did figure it out, but I was surprised to be nominated because I didn’t do anything more than anyone else volunteering at the clinics.”
When Carmine was presented with the award, he says his acceptance speech was very short, simply noting that he was accepting the award on behalf of the many people who volunteered at the vaccination clinics. He explained how many people were involved in making the clinics run smoothly.
“That was the only way I could accept that award,” says Carmine, who estimates he vaccinated 1,000 people through various clinics. “When I got the award, I explained that I’m not doing anything special and there are a lot of people at these clinics stepping up.”
Carmine stepped up to volunteer when he first heard about the possibility of vaccination clinics. As a retired career firefighter for the East Haven Fire Department (EHFD) who is still an EMT and has been a volunteer firefighter in town since 1982, Carmine first learned of the opportunity in December when the East Shore District Health Department (ESDHD) put out a call for volunteers.
He took an online course and, still wanting more training and information, he took another course through the University of Connecticut and then participated in an in-person training in Middletown.
Once ESDHD began running clinics at the East Haven Senior Center, Carmine was there. He then became involved with the Medical Response Corps and worked at clinics in Branford and Northford. He applied as a volunteer vaccinator Yale New Haven Hospital and was part of many of its mass vaccination clinics.
This is certainly not the first time that Carmine has seen a need for help and stepped up. His father tells him he always wanted to be a firefighter, but it wasn’t until Carmine witnessed an explosion that badly burned one of his friends that he made a move toward it as a career. The accident happened in 1981 and the next year, Carmine’s sister began dating a firefighter.
“After my friend recovered, I said, ‘I’m going to find out what I could’ve done,’ because I didn’t know how to help him,” says Carmine. “My sister’s date then told me they were looking for volunteers for EMTs.”
Carmine joined EHFD Volunteer Co. 1 on July 7, 1982 and from there, he decided to use his vacation time from his job at the railroad company to put himself through the fire academy. He was hired by the EHFD, serving most of his career at Station 4 in the Momauguin area.
Carmine retired from the EHFD on July 15, 2018, working 30 years and 7 months as a career firefighter. He will celebrate his 39th anniversary as a volunteer firefighter this July. He will celebrate his 39th anniversary as a volunteer firefighter this July.
“I can’t tell you how many people I treated in my career, but there were a lot,” says Carmine. “Of course, there are some bad calls in there that stick with you, but I loved my career and still miss it. It is truly a brotherhood and sisterhood.”
Over the years, Carmine made many connections that led to other volunteer opportunities as well, though meeting a Ugandan priest at St. Clare Church truly sparked a new passion. Through that relationship, Carmine first volunteered abroad, traveling to Africa to work on a cooperative farm and well. After that trip, Carmine says he was “hooked.” He has since traveled to Mexico, Ecuador, and Haiti.
Carmine volunteered to build houses for the poor in Juarez, Mexico, with a church group from Milford. He then made a connection through a friend of a friend that brought him to Ecuador to help build preschools, which blossomed into other opportunities to help those in need.
“It was nice working with the indigenous population and I was able to show them a really easy technique for purifying water to help combat dysentery,” says Carmine. “When my younger daughter got into high school, she came with me. Never in my life would I have imagined that one day I’d be walking on a mountain path in the Andes teaching people to purify water.”
In the following years, Carmine traveled to Ecuador more than a dozen times. The connections began to grow and when the Town of East Haven retired one of its firetrucks, the EHFD donated it to the local fire department in Ecuador. The truck was shipped there and Carmine again traveled there to train the local firefighters.
Because he didn’t speak the language, he had an interpreter. Carmine and the interpreter became fast friends and he stayed with her and her husband on his trips there and the couple has since stayed with Carmine and his family in East Haven.
Through a priest at St. Vincent De Paul, Carmine found the Haitian Health Foundation, which was operating remote medical clinics in Haiti. He traveled to Haiti to help with the clinics several times, inspiring two of his coworkers to join him on a visit.
“The last time I was supposed to go down was in 2019, but there were riots and it was too dangerous,” says Carmine. “Then COVID hit and put a kibosh on international travel.”
Carmine’s volunteering wasn’t limited to international travel. Years ago, he rescued a golden retriever with the hopes of training her for urban search and rescue. Carmine noted that Jessie “didn’t have the drive for that,” so the pair applied for Yale’s pet therapy program, in which they participated for five years.
“She was a really excellent dog,” says Carmine. “She was really good...and made people feel really comfortable.”
Upon retiring from the EHFD, Carmine saw an ad for Team Rubicon, an organization with more than 100,000 members worldwide. According to its website, teamrubiconusa.org, the mission of Team Rubicon is “providing relief to those affected by disaster, no matter when or where they strike. By pairing the skills and experiences of military veterans with first responders, medical professionals, and technology solutions, Team Rubicon aims to provide the greatest service and impact possible.”
Through his involvement with Team Rubicon over the past three years, Carmine has taken part in hurricane responses in North Carolina and Florida. It also responded locally to the microburst tornadoes last August. Team Rubicon also responds internationally, though Carmine hasn’t yet had the opportunity for such a deployment.
Carmine is thankful to his family for supporting him in both his career and volunteer work over the years as both have kept him away from home for stretches at a time. He and his wife Patricia will celebrate their 33rd anniversary this November and they have two daughters, 27-year-old Caitlin and 24-year-old Tierney.
Carmine will continue to volunteer his efforts with the vaccination clinics as needed and he looks forward to finding more opportunities to help those in need as things reopen. Helping others is a lesson he has carried with him throughout his life.
“When I was growing up in the '60s and '70s, there weren’t really volunteer opportunities for kids—it was more about helping your neighbor,” says Carmine. “I’ve done a lot of volunteering, both domestic and abroad. The clinics were just something I could do in the fight against COVID.”