February 16th.
It was a date Charlene Moore was certain to mark on her
calendar.
The day never had much significance before, but this year it
meant something. That’s because it marked the one-year anniversary
of her starting to volunteer at Kaiser Gilroy Medical Offices.
February 16th.
It was a date Charlene Moore was certain to mark on her calendar.
The day never had much significance before, but this year it meant something. That’s because it marked the one-year anniversary of her starting to volunteer at Kaiser Gilroy Medical Offices.
“I put it on my calendar – at least the first year I want to know,” Moore said. “It’s just the fun, the enjoyment that I have. It’s just important for me.”
Moore is one of more than 20 retired South Valley residents who volunteer for weekly four-hour shifts at the health education department and at the information desk at Kaiser.
For these local seniors, volunteering takes on more than just one important role in their lives. Not only do they feel good about themselves because they are helping others, but it gives them a chance to get out of the house, meet new people and, most importantly, feel good about themselves.
“It’s been good for me physically, mentally and spiritually,” Moore said.
When Moore’s mother died several years ago, she began volunteering at Live Oak Adult Day Center to help fill the void.
Moore helps tend to the facility’s garden with her sister, Barbara Good, and meets with friends of her mother. She also helps hold an Easter Egg Hunt each year at Live Oak Adult Day, Gilroy Elder Care and Gilroy’s Gateway School, which is for developmentally disabled children.
But it didn’t seem to be enough for Moore, so she joined the growing list of seniors looking to lend a helping hand at Kaiser.
“I thought, ‘I need to give something more back to the community,’ ” she said. “It feels good to be able to help people, to see them smile.”
Kaiser has made an effort to increase volunteerism at the hospital in the last year, said Debra Stone, health education manager for Kaiser Gilroy Medical Offices.
The volunteer services in Gilroy started in 1991 but expanded in the last year when Kaiser built the information desk in the lobby of the building. By word-of-mouth, a new informational video that runs twice daily on CMAP and newspaper ads, the company has added 15 members in the last year and found more ways for them to help out.
“We expanded volunteer services to allow them to greet,” Stone said. “We’ve added volunteers over the last year. We went from six to 21 in the last year, and I hope to have 30 by the end of the year.”
Three volunteers are on staff at all times, helping to direct people around the center, answer questions and help out in the health education center.
“They do a lot of projects for us, putting things together,” Stone said.
Besides helping at the information desk, the volunteers also assemble informational packets and kits, like disaster readiness kits Kaiser recently made for the Gilroy Police Department, and do fund-raising for the clinic.
“The money they raise goes back to patient care,” Stone said.
The hundreds of dollars raised by the volunteers mainly go to books and magazines for patients to read while waiting in the medical center.
The volunteers either work a 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. or a 1 to 5 p.m. shift weekly.
“Nurses use them to move people from appointment to appointment,” Stone said. “Some of them may have five places they need to go.”
Dressed in uniforms that consist of light-blue jackets and dark-colored pants, the volunteers are all smiles as they go about their daily work, which often includes helping patients around the medical offices.
Al Volpatti, who has been with Kaiser as a volunteer for 14 years, said people often find themselves lost roaming around the center. That’s where he comes in.
“I have a good pointing finger. But I always ask, ‘Do you have a ham sandwich in your pocket?'” he joked. “But no one ever has had one.”
The Kaiser clinic has gotten much busier over the past 14 years, Volpatti said, but the volunteers know that one thing never changes: Many of the people who come into Kaiser need to see a smiling face.
“People who come in here are sick,” said Laurel Maloney, a volunteer who was involved in the travel industry in Gilroy for 38 years. “We try to help them, to make them feel comfortable.”
Maloney has been volunteering on and off for five years, and she said like most people she got involved in the program through hearing about it from a friend.
“A friend of mine is a volunteer, so I thought I’d come,” she said. “I enjoy it. I like the people I work with. People are fun. You’ll find most of the people here find it the same way. If it wasn’t, they wouldn’t come.”
Norma Wilson, who will turn 81 in April, heard about the program through her former co-worker Maloney five months ago and started coming herself.
Born in San Martin and having lived in Gilroy since 1947, she finally retired a few years ago and got tired of staying in the house.
“It’s boring just sitting around. We have a small house, and I think I’m done with all the traveling I want to do for a while.”
Most of the volunteers feel the same way. They consist of people who had busy careers – a retired bank manger, teachers, engineers – and are the kind of people who aren’t likely to sit around the house now that they’re retired.
“They’re people that have had very active careers,” Stone said. “They like to be kept busy. This is not the only place they volunteer. It’s often just one of many things they participate in.”
Wilson is constantly on the move. She was parade chairman for a late summer celebration in Gilroy called Bonanza Days in Gilroy for 13 years before the Garlic Festival made it obsolete, and also has taken part in events with Las Senoritas.
“You see, I have to do something,” she said. “I can’t sit around.”
While some volunteers joined because they heard about the program from a friend, others help out at Kaiser because the clinic itself has changed – or even saved – their lives.
That’s the case with Bud Burchell, Kaiser’s newest volunteer. The former Las Animas Elementary principal, who has lived in Gilroy since 1968, feels he owes it to himself to help out at the clinic.
“I had a heart attack, and if it wasn’t for their prompt action, I wouldn’t be here today,” Burchell said.
Burchell suffered the heart attack Thanksgiving Day four years ago.
“I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know what,” Burchell said.
Now Burchell, as healthy as ever, likes to help others who are sick.
“I just walk with them and pass the time of day with them,” he said. “If things were going well for them, they wouldn’t be here. It’s important to volunteer, to do something for the community.”
Fred Ziemann, a Gilroy and Morgan Hill resident for 30 years, also volunteers for Kaiser because of care he received through the health care provider.
“I like Kaiser and I want to help them,” said Ziemann, who joined Kaiser in 1983 after he had gall bladder surgery. Ziemann didn’t have Kaiser then, but switched services when he saw the level of attention his roommate was receiving from a Kaiser doctor.
“My doctor would pop his head in and charge me $90,” he said.
Ziemann, who once owned service stations in Gilroy, Casa de Fruta and San Martin and sold tires for 20 years for Firestone, also credits Kaiser for helping him through a series of strokes he had five years ago.
“They took care of me quick, and I don’t have them anymore,” he said.
One volunteer, Carol Brittain, didn’t start volunteering until her husband, Al Brittain, died four years ago.
“I came when I lost my husband … four years ago,” she said. “I’m sorry I didn’t do it before.”
Brittain said she first thought about being a volunteer when she saw the volunteers at the Kaiser hospital in San Jose.
“We had been with Kaiser a long time,” Brittain said. “We always saw the volunteers, and I talked with them. I thought it was something I’d like to do.”
For Brittain, volunteering at the center has meant more than she can explain.
“I think it’s the people you get to see. I see a lot of friends,” she said. “Sometimes I think it’s a reason to get up in the morning. It’s important.”
Brittain also encourages her friends to sign up. She was the one who told Burchell about volunteering before he signed up last month.
“As we see friends, we tell them about it,” she said. “Before we know it, we have another volunteer.
“You always feel appreciated here,” Brittain continued. “You like doing things when someone says, ‘thank you.'”
Brittain’s comments were echoed by other volunteers, including Helen Strandlund, who said volunteering at Kaiser makes her feel like she has purpose.
“It’s very rewarding,” she said. “I feel like I’m doing something with my time.”
Strandlund said it can be easy to feel without a purpose when the kids are out of the house and you’re retired. Volunteering helps solve that.
“You don’t think about yourself like you do at home,” she said. “When you’re sitting there and you have an ache or pain, it bothers you. It doesn’t as much here. Mentally, it helps when you have something to do.
“And I feel like I’m needed,” she said. “You’re needed for a while, and then they’re gone. I think everyone wants to feel that way.”
