teams are registered with Little League and host an in-house baseball league, and participate in the Catholic Youth Organization. The football league plays in the Nassau and Suffolk Football League. The soccer league is completely run by the organization and participates in the Catholic Youth Organization. The swimming team participates in the Police Athletic League of New York City and the Catholic Youth Organization. The basketball league also participates in the Catholic Youth Organization. Broad Channel Historical Society The Broad Channel Historical Society was established in 1994 by the Civic Association's then-president Danny Mundy after he read the local Channel News newsletter's "Glimpse of the Past" column. Ada L. Smith, the New York State Senator representing the district, distributed funds, which the society used to purchase notebooks to record the community's history. Since June 1995, the society has held Annual Historical Day every year so visitors could look at the collection in the Broad Channel Library. The Broad Channel Library has been the home for the historical collection. The collection was microfilmed in 1997. The microfilm is available for viewing at the Central Branch in Jamaica, Queens. Also in 1997 the first annual Historical Calendar was published. The calendars feature old pictures of Broad Channel and tidal information. Broad Channel Volunteer Fire Department The department originally started in 1905 as bucket brigade to help minimize property loss due to fires. In 1907, this brigade was formally organized into the Broad Channel Volunteer Fire Association under its first Chief, Edward H. Schleuter. The current firehouse at 15 Noel Road was opened in the summer of 1908. In 1913, Chief Chris Hoobs died of a heart attack responding to a fire. The association received their fire charter from the state of New York in 1917 and were known from then on as the Broad Channel Volunteers. In 1956, then-Deputy Chief Robert H. Russell Sr. added volunteer ambulance services to provide first aid and ambulatory care to the residents of Broad Channel. He would also go on to be elected to the rank of Chief of Department twenty-one times from 1957–1973, 1975–1977, and again in 1984. By the early 1960s, the department was growing rapidly in both stature in the community and as an organization as a whole. On summer weekends during the 1950s and 1960s, the FDNY would send a spare engine and a crew detailed from other firehouses, known as Engine