Lakeside Volunteer Rescue Squad hardly meant to go overboard celebrating its 50th anniversary this month. Times are tight.

But the event scheduled for Aug. 16-17 is on life support.

"It's not coming together like we hoped," said Tracy Giddens-Jarrett, longtime volunteer and five-year president. "We may even have to drop down to just one day. A band has volunteered, and we might be able to have people come by for a hot dog or something. Our lifetime members will show up, of course, but mostly we'll just be here."

"Being here" for Lakeside volunteers means 24 hours a day, seven days a week for 50 years.

The all-volunteer force -- 69 people ranging from ages 16 to 70 -- handles about 3,500 calls a year and puts in 30,000 hours annually in actual real-time missions.

Giddens-Jarrett had envisioned displays, children's activities, music, food, 50-year commemorative gifts and games for the celebration.

"We budgeted $12,000; less than $1,000 has come in," she said.

Giddens-Jarrett, who is unpaid and puts in 12 hours a week working emergency calls on top of her regular job as an organ-donation coordinator, said she understands that families are struggling.

"We have a lot of retired people, longtime Henrico County residents on fixed incomes," she said.

Free emergency service is an institution in the county, but that doesn't mean the squad is protected from financial pain.

"The word is that we will need to be more and more responsible for things that the county has paid for in the past," Giddens-Jarrett said.

Gasoline and insurance costs, now paid for by the county, are likely targets. The budget for annual operations paid for through donations now exceeds $215,000, she said.

Henrico's automotive fleet manager, Charles Gibbens, says the county paid $2.23 a gallon for diesel in July 2007, but the price was $3.94 a gallon by June of this year.

Now the squad is cutting back any way it can, except in delivery of service to central Henrico residents. Taking a squad vehicle to buy dinner is a thing of the past.

"Now, we stop for food only when we're coming back from a call. Or we bring food from home," Giddens-Jarrett said.

She said the squad is still accepting donations for the celebration and that no medical-care donations will be diverted for the anniversary event.

She is urging friends to stop by headquarters on Aug. 16, even if it's just to say hello.

Contact Bill McKelway at (804) 649-6601 or bmckelway@timesdispatch.com.