Volunteers honored at luncheon
RANDOLPH 5/4/07 – Their smiling faces, heartfelt prayers and vibrant personalities breath life into Gifford Medical Center and its patients. Certainly, it is the doctors, nurses and other health care providers who heal the sick, but it is the hospital’s volunteers who add to the character of the place.
And they are appreciated for it.
That was the message Monday at Gifford in Randolph as it honored its volunteers, who in 2006 gave 12,000 hours to the hospital, Menig Extended Care Facility nursing home and Thrift Shop.
“Health care is a very demanding field, what you bring to it is so important to us,” Gifford President and Chief Executive Officer Joseph Woodin said. “Your character and time make this place very special, and I appreciate that a lot. It makes Gifford who we are.”
Volunteers, said Gifford Board of Trustees Chairman and speaker Randy Garner, make Gifford a “medical home.”
Garner recalled the path that brought him to Vermont and to Gifford. As a fifth-grader, he studied the 50 states. He saw images of Vermont, tasted maple sugar and was hooked. Just out of high school, he toured New England by bus for one week – the only “non-retiree” in the group.
Later visits brought him to Randolph and his job at Day’s Funeral Home. He’d experienced Gifford early on. His youngest child suffered a serious ear infection, was treated at Gifford and received “the finest medical care we had experienced in any facility in our lives.”
“For me, Gifford had been a beacon of safety,” Garner said.
One Sunday morning, Garner experienced respiratory distress. He came to Gifford’s Emergency Department and then was admitted to the inpatient unit, Howell Pavilion. He awoke in the hospital to volunteer Dolly McKinney standing at his bedside. She took his hand and said a prayer.
“She said I’d be all right,” recalled Garner, choking up, “and I knew at that moment I would be.”
“You are the folks at Gifford who make us feel that we are at home,” Garner said. Volunteers’ prayers and warm smiles “heal not just our bodies but perhaps most importantly our souls. May God bless each of you, … you who help make Gifford Medical Center our medical home.”
Gifford honors its more than 100 volunteers each year in April around or during National Volunteer Week. This year’s week asked volunteers to “Inspire by Example!”
Gifford’s volunteers do, Coordinator Jeanne Goss said.
“You all here because of your strong sense of pride in our community,” Goss said. “It is truly an honor to know each of you.”
Specially honored this year was Elaine Soule of Randolph Center. Soule served as volunteer coordinator at Gifford for nearly six years before retiring in December. She continues on as a Gifford volunteer and as treasurer of the Auxiliary as well as volunteering throughout Randolph.
“You can see Elaine at functions around town, quietly and capably volunteering to make her community a better place. She is an example – like so many of you – of what makes this community great,” said Ashley Lincoln, Gifford director of Development and Marketing. “Thank you, Elaine, for the countless hours you give to Gifford and so many local organizations. We are all better for it.”
To learn more about volunteering at Gifford, call Goss at (802) 728-2324 or e-mail jgoss@giffordmed.org.