Volunteers are key to our mission at Ohio’s Hospice. During National Volunteer Week and National Volunteer Month, we extend a heartfelt thank you to these dedicated individuals who go above and beyond to help us provide superior care and superior services to the patients and families we have the privilege of serving.  

Volunteers play a vital role as members of our hospice care team, as they share a wide variety of skills and represent a mix of cultural backgrounds and beliefs. They can work in direct and non-direct supportive service roles ranging from visiting patients in a nursing home or inpatient care unit to providing respite for caregivers to assisting in an office setting. 

John Frederick spends about three hours once a week in our eight-bed inpatient unit at the Wexner Medical Center in Columbus. A volunteer since it opened in 2019, John performs myriad duties but the most meaningful and impactful is spending time with our patients. 

“Sometimes just being a silent companion, a caring companion, sitting with them if there’s no family members there,” he said. “Talking with them, if they’re able to, or just being a caring presence.” 

John has also been part of one family as they were Celebrating Life’s Stories^® with a loved one. In this particular lady’s room, John looked around and saw a Bible and “something related to some gospel music.” 

“As I was just sitting beside and talking with her, I thought, I’m gonna pull up on my phone and see if I can find some Elvis Presley gospel music. I found some things, and as I was playing ‘Amazing Grace’ she had passed away. And it was like, wow, it was a real spiritual moment for her and for me.” 

After telling the family what happened, he had another spiritual moment. Family members told John that “Amazing Grace” was her favorite song and she listened to it all the time. 

“What are the chances of just kind of pulling that out of the thin air, and there it is,” John said. “It gave me goosebumps. Just thank God for that privilege of being there at the right place at the right time. I think that’s one of the reasons I really love doing this. As difficult as it is because every so often you get one of those moments that just stay with you for your life.” 

In our North Care Region, Kathie Clyde had a hospice experience with her mother and thought volunteering at Ohio’s Hospice was a perfect way to get involved in something after retiring. 

She spends about an hour with our patients in nursing homes and actually learned a lot from a virtually non-verbal lady she visited for five years. 

“When I started, it was hard to sit with a patient for 30 minutes and not speak with them,” Kathie said. “That was not natural. It didn’t come naturally to me.” 

She began singing to the patient and would occasionally elicit a small reaction. But that’s where the lesson began. 

“She taught me though because over the course of five years, this could get tedious,” Kathie said. “And I could get easily distracted because there were times I’d go and she’d just be sound asleep. So maybe I wouldn’t sing the whole time. But over the course of five years, it helped me to become much more centered on her so that at about the 2.5-3 year mark, I didn’t get distracted anymore. I could just come and sit with her and breathe and focus on her and just have a lovely time. Being present.”   

Also in our North Care Region, Matt Call currently provides in-home respite for caregivers. He spends time with a patient while the family members get a break. Having no prior hospice interaction, about two years ago a friend of Matt’s who was a volunteer suggested he also donate some time to hospice. 

Matt said being a volunteer and becoming close with patients is an “emotional bullseye” but he has no regrets. 

“That’s the hard part, you don’t know how long your engagement is going to last,” he said. “It could be a while. But it’s been very good. It’s an opportunity to help out. Help out the person, help out the family. It’s been very rewarding.” 

Since the beginning, volunteers have played an important role in building and refining the hospice care we provide today. While Medicare requires that volunteers provide at least 5% of patient care hours, our volunteers contribute far more than required — they bring heart and humanity to everything we do.  

All volunteers are provided training and an opportunity to identify the kind of contribution with which they are most comfortable. 

We are deeply grateful for our volunteers, whose compassion and dedication exemplify our mission of Celebrating Life’s Stories®. We invite anyone in our community to join us as a volunteer and help make a meaningful difference in the lives of the patients and families we have the privilege to serve. Whether you can give a few hours weekly or monthly, your presence can bring comfort and joy to those on their end-of-life journey.