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Mostly Cloudy SNCH celebrates 50-year volunteers
How do you keep active and alert? According to three area women, the answer is to volunteer for many, many years.
June Kane of Rockville Centre, Ruth Fortin of Oceanside, and Jean Silvers of Baldwin celebrated their 50-year anniversaries of volunteering at South Nassau Communities Hospital with medals, awards and a cake.
“It gets me out of the house two days a week, and I meet people, I see people, and I do things,” said Kane, 87. “Otherwise I’d be sitting around the house.”
Kane volunteers in the electrocardiogram department, where she files paperwork and patient charts. “My father was in here, many years ago,” she said. “There was a volunteer who brought cards for him when I was visiting and then there was [an article in the Rockville Centre News and Owl.] They had an article where they would write down volunteers in the hospital. And I thought that sounds exciting. Working in a hospital with doctors… that’s something I’d like to try. And do.”
Fortin, 91, said she heard about the volunteer program from an adult education classmate, and “I came right over and signed up.” She worked in the gift shop for 35 years, but became a messenger after a hospital extension removed the gift shop. As a messenger, she brings sheets, equipment, charts and many othe objects to the different units.
“People are so nice, it’s very rewarding,” she said. “Very rewarding. Especially the doctors that stop you in the hall and thank you for doing this.” She wants to work until she’s 95. She will be 92 this month.
Silvers, 88, said that volunteering keeps her young. It keeps me active, keeps me young,” she said. “I don’t have to go on the treadmill.” She added that she spends a lot of time walking around, as she works in the emergency room where she make admittance packets and patient files.
Before that, she worked at the pharmacy for 27 years. “I was the woman behind the men,” she said. “But I’m not a pharmacist.”
According to director of volunteer services Anne Fernandez, there are 375 volunteers at SNCH, and they range in age from 14 to 92. “They are very sharp,” she said of the three women. “And I have to say that I am so impressed by the level of energy that they have…They are no nonsense women. They can handle it all.”
