Volunteer Services
Volunteers—both adults and teens—are vital to our organization. They come to us from diverse backgrounds and fill a variety of needs. Some work directly with patients; others assist with office work, maintain our grounds, and perform a multitude of other tasks to support our organization. Each one is unique, but they all have one thing in common—a desire to make a difference. If you want to give back, to make a difference, you’ve come to the right place.
To learn more, download our Volunteer brochure.
11th Hour Volunteers
These volunteers receive additional training and can be called upon to spend time with patients and families during what will be, most likely, a patient’s final 24 to 48 hours.
Bereavement Volunteers
Bereavement volunteers may assist in providing emotional support and compassionate understanding through personal visits, telephone calls, and/or written contact. They may be asked to contact bereaved family members on the occasion of special anniversary dates through a personal visit, telephone call, or written correspondence.
Legacy Volunteers
Legacy Volunteers record hospice patients’ stories of their lives. As patients decide what parts of their lives they want to share, we suggest topics—perhaps they want to talk about favorite childhood memories, military experiences, their first job, faraway places they have visited, or special thoughts about life, and so forth. Once they decide they’re ready to tell their stories, we set up a series of interview dates to videotape them. We then edit the tapes and present DVD copies to the patients and their family members.
Office Volunteers
.jpg)
Office volunteers may assist with typing, organization and preparation of mailings (letters to patients’ families, newsletters, etc.), filing, staff errands, and other such duties.
Patient/Family Volunteers
Patient/family volunteers assist in providing emotional support and compassionate understanding to the patient and family in a home care or in-patient setting, providing assistance when and where it is needed to improve the quality of the patient’s remaining life. They may be asked to help with transportation, reading, letter-writing, caregiver relief, etc. The volunteer coordinator carefully matches patients with volunteers.
Patient Care Unit Volunteers
Patient Care Unit volunteers assist patients staying at either the Forlines Patient Care Unit at the Robbins Center or at Stevens Patient Care Unit at Kirkwood. They may:
- Assist in providing emotional support and compassionate understanding to the patient and family to improve the quality of the patient’s remaining life
- Assist in keeping the patient care unit a neat, attractive, and home-like atmosphere
- Assist nursing staff with certain aspects of physical care, as deemed appropriate and if comfortable with providing personal care
- Assist nursing staff with food service, supplies, housekeeping, etc.
- Provide comfort and support to patients
Veterans Honoring Veterans
Veterans Honoring Veterans allows military veteran volunteers to honor veteran patients. Our veteran volunteers visit veteran patients to present them with a small American flag, a certificate of appreciation, and a lapel pin as a way to honor their military service. Veteran patients may also choose to be videotaped sharing their military experiences or life stories.
Vigil Music
Vigil Music Volunteers are specially trained to sing or play recorded music very, very softly to patients in their final hours. The volunteers offer support to the patients and respect for the sanctity of this hallowed time. Music may be performed live by no more than three volunteers or the volunteers may play music recorded specially for a patient’s final hours.
VolunTEENS
VolunTEENS visit Caldwell Hospice patients and residents at area long-term-care facilities and patients at our patient care units. They work on special projects, help with clerical assignments or in our annual children's grief camp. VolunTEENS must be in high school and can participate through their high school's Hospice VolunTEENS club.
VolunTEENS training is held each summer. To be selected for the VolunTEENS program, high school students must complete an application and interview process. Only 25 teens are accepted for the program annually. To learn more download our VolunTEENS brochure.
Volunteer Stories
“All in the Family” Hospice Volunteers
(Published in Spring 2005 Carelines).
Caldwell Hospice and Palliative Care attracts amazing people. Patients and families praise the Hospice staff and volunteers who care for them. When asked why they’re working with Hospice, staff and volunteers often cite the emotional gifts they receive from patients and families. It’s all quite circular and very authentic. Everyone involved receives blessings in what may appear, at first glance, to be the least likely circumstances. Grief and pain can be sad and sometimes solitary experiences, but they don’t have to be. We can learn from one family of Hospice volunteers, two sisters and a brother, all of whom became Hospice volunteers and certified nursing assistants, after sharing the care-giving responsibilities for their mother among themselves and with Hospice.
Betty Klutz, Bennie Kincaid, and Larry Estes alternated caring for their mother during her declining health, at their respective homes. After she spent two weeks in Hospice’s patient care unit, they continued caring for her, even while all of them found time to enroll in the volunteer program. Her second stay at Hospice was 10 days in duration before she died. After her death, the three siblings decided to enroll in CCC&TI’s Certified Nursing Assistant program. All three continue to volunteer at Caldwell Hospice, and all three work part-time with us as CNAs.
Betty, Bennie, and Larry like to help others, and they identify themselves as caregivers. They speak with one voice. Larry “enjoys” working with Hospice patients, naming care-giving the “vocation God was calling me into.” Betty says volunteers can help by “just holding patients’ hands.” Bennie describes her role as “my calling, too,” noting that she works at Hospice on weekends, as needed. Betty looked after her husband who spent six years in a rest home, and now she works every other weekend in the patient care unit, as well as volunteering. Larry cared for his wife, who was a cancer patient, and now he cares for his three grandchildren during the day. At night, he fulfills his volunteer and CNA duties, and he works in the volunteer orientation program. He says, “We fell in love with Hospice.”
Their advice to people who might want to become Hospice volunteers comes from the heart. Larry says that, if people “feel like that’s what God put on their mind, they shouldn’t be afraid.” The staff will train and help them overcome their fears. They can always ask for help, and they will become more confident. Betty says people should try it and see; they’ll get such a feeling of helping, and there are so many ways they can help. According to Larry, it could be as simple as going to the grocery store or taking a patient to the doctor.
Bennie advises, “Go with your feelings. You can do it if this is what God wants you to do. Once you get started, you don’t think about yourself; you think about what you do for others.” Larry assures people that they will find satisfaction in volunteering for Hospice. This family of volunteers leads the way!
