St. Mary’s Hospice House Seeks Volunteers

St. Mary’s Healthcare is looking for compassionate people who can volunteer time a few hours a month at their Hospice house in Athens as well as in-home hospice assistance in our immediate area.

St. Mary’s Hospice provides physical, emotional, and spiritual care to those at the end of their life’s journey, ensuring that patients are treated as if they are their own family members.

Ellen Everitt is the Volunteer Coordinator for St. Mary’s Hospice and Palliative Care Services.

She said volunteers help support that mission through friendly visits, respite care, pet/music therapy, and much more, creating deep and lasting support for both patients and their loved ones.

“Our volunteers do those things you don’t need a nurse for,” she explained. “Because we’re in a national nursing shortage, our nurses are doing everything from making sure the linen is stocked, checking expiration dates, to watering the plants. And that puts a lot of extra work on them. So what our volunteers help do, they come in, they take care of those things, they help answer phones, and they also sit with families and talk who might need someone to talk with them.”

Normally most people think of hospice care as something morbid and depressing, but Everitt said it’s not that at all and she cites the case of one volunteer who has been a hospice volunteer for over 20 years.

“I asked him, ‘when you tell people that you volunteer for hospice what do they say?’ because he’s also a mentor for Clarke County so he works with the little ones as well. He said, ‘Well everyone thinks that it’s just about sitting beside someone when they die but it’s not. It’s about celebrating their life and having them know that they’re in a loving community.’ Which I think is exactly right. A lot of our folks graduate from hospice and they come on the program and off the program. It is not a death sentence to be on hospice, which a lot of people think it is. Actually, it is a place that is full of a lot of joy and a lot of care where you are getting the best treatment possible from people who truly do care about the folks they serve with.”

And if traveling to Athens is too far but you would still be interested in volunteering Everitt said St. Mary’s Hospice is also looking for volunteers in the Franklin/Hart county area to do in-home hospice care.

“We also have volunteers who serve in the home. Our home hospice volunteers go into the patient’s home. They’re kind of that window into the world to have just a friendly visitor come in and sit with them and talk with them about their life and some of the things they’re feeling,” Everitt explained. “It also benefits their caretakers. When you are a caretaker and you have someone who is medically fragile and who doesn’t want to be alone, it is exhausting and you don’t even have time to go take a shower and have that self-care. So, you don’t get burned out. Our volunteers are also the ones helping with that so they can say, ‘hey we got you, go take a shower, go get groceries, go read a book, go do something for yourself.’ So, we’re also taking care of the family in that way.”

Volunteers usually work about four hours a month or more if they choose.

If you would be interested in learning more about being a hospice volunteer you can email Everitt at [email protected] or give her a call at 706-389-2273.