Sometimes the most useful thing is a person in the chair.
Trained volunteers are part of the hospice team, not an extra. For a caregiver who has not left the house in three weeks, an afternoon is everything.
What volunteers do.
- Sit with a patient: conversation, quiet company, or reading aloud
- Give a caregiver a few hours to sleep, shop, or go to their own appointment
- Play music, look through photographs, or help record a life story
- Write letters, or help sort the things that need sorting
- Be present in the last days, so that nobody sits alone
- Help in the office, with the work that keeps care moving
What it asks of you.
- A few hours a week or a month, on a schedule that suits you
- Training before your first visit, and support after it
- Background screening, as with every member of the team
- Willingness to sit with sadness without needing to fix it
- No clinical experience of any kind
An honest word about it.
This is not light work, and we will not pretend otherwise. It asks you to be near the end of someone's life on a regular basis. Almost every volunteer we have tells us it gave them more than it took, but you should go in knowing what it is.
How to start.
Call 847-779-3989 or send us a note through the contact page. We will talk about what you would like to do and when the next training runs.
