National Volunteer Week: TDMH
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Stacia Hanson
Tillsonburg District Memorial Hospital
National Volunteer Week is scheduled for April 22 to 26, 2013. The theme for this year’s National Volunteer Week is: Volunteers Cast a Beautiful Shadow.’
Here at TDMH, we have many volunteers who cast beautiful shadows. Our 229 in-hospital volunteers combined to contribute a total of 23,000 hours to enhance patient services. These volunteers ‘cast their beautiful shadows’ in 30 areas of the hospital.
You may see volunteers assisting in peri-operative services helping patients prepare for their procedures, you may see our young people - our ‘volunteens’ helping inpatients with their meals on 1 South or 2 South or you may see volunteers portering patients to and from their tests and appointments.
Wherever you look, our volunteers are busy helping out and casting those ‘beautiful shadows’ throughout our facility.
It does not stop there - our volunteers continue to cast beautiful shadows within our community. Our 289 off-site Extravaganza volunteers worked 6,630 hours for this event, last year. These volunteers along with other fundraising volunteers (Coffee shop, Gift shop, HELPP tickets and Marathon Bridge) raised $83,000. This amount will complete the Volunteer Association’s pledge to the Digital Mammography Campaign and purchase ICCU Telemetry Monitoring Equipment.
The “beautiful shadows’ continue to be cast. Our convenors schedule their volunteers and keep their groups up to date regarding training initiatives. All volunteers are members of the Volunteer Association which is governed by a volunteer Board of Directors who provide leadership and governance.
As you can conclude, TDMH is fortunate to have so many groups of volunteers who truly cast their ‘beautiful shadows’ within the hospital facility or within the community on behalf of the hospital.
On the Volunteer Canada website, we read that the volunteering is a part of who we are as Canadians. The Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada, calls Canada “a smart and caring nation.”
It’s our dedication to community involvement that has given us that reputation home and around the globe. Volunteers strengthen our community and make our country vibrant. Our TDMH volunteers, as they continue to ‘cast their beautiful shadows’ are consistent with our nation’s smart and caring reputation. Our volunteers’ dedication and support to our hospital is great example of community involvement - second to none.
We are truly lucky to have such a great group of people so thank you to each and every one of you for those ‘beautiful shadows!’
If you are interested in joining this amazing team, please contact Volunteer Resources at 519-842-3611 Ext. 5295.