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Date: 1/4/2023
WESTFIELD — Former Mayor Daniel Knapik is returning to Westfield to head the Medical Reserve Corps, in an effort to revitalize the program and give the city more resources when dealing with natural disasters.
His appointment to the post was announced Dec. 14 at a city Board of Health meeting. Health Director Joseph Rouse said Knapik will have to rebuild the volunteer corps, which has “dwindled down to nothing.”
Knapik said Dec. 28 that after speaking with Rouse about the challenges the city faced without a functioning Medical Reserve Corps, he said he felt he had the time and energy to help. In his time both as mayor of Westfield and town administrator of Yarmouth, Knapik said he had been in leadership positions for at least half a dozen natural disasters, including a 2011 storm in which the Medical Reserve Corps played a key role in keeping Westfield residents safe.
“That was the longest time duration for a public shelter to be open and running in Westfield,” said Knapik of the 2011 storm.
He said one route he may explore to recruit new members is to find student volunteers interested in pursuing a medical career. He noted that one does not need to have a medical background to volunteer.
“We just need people with a commitment to their fellow citizens and volunteerism,” said Knapik. “For the vast majority of the work that goes on, it is volunteer labor that is needed.”
He said he hopes to have an organizational meeting for the Medical Reserve Corps in January. For volunteers without any medical experience, Knapik said the corps would provide basic CPR and first aid training.
Knapik was mayor of Westfield from 2010 to 2015, when he did not seek re-election, instead joining the Gov. Charlie Baker administration as director of Green Communities. He returned to Westfield and served for one year as an at-large city councilor from 2016 to 2017 before taking a position as town administrator in the Cape Cod town of Yarmouth.
Knapik left that role in January 2021, and returned again to Western Massachusetts to serve as executive director of Partners for Community, a nonprofit in Springfield that provides administrative and management services to other nonprofit organizations.