Hospice rich with giving
The Marlborough Express
Relevant offers
To mark Volunteer Week, SONIA O'REGAN spent a morning meeting some of the more than 200 volunteers who help make the Marlborough Community Hospice a success.
We can have fresh cut roses year round, Marlborough Community Hospice volunteer co-ordinator Elaine Blair says, gesturing to the brave yellow blooms defying a frost.
The roses are maintained by the Marlborough Rose Society, while the set gardens are looked after by the Wairau Garden Club. Other volunteers keep the paths swept, the hedges trimmed and the trees in order people such as Mike, who is cheerily sweeping away leaves seemingly oblivious to the low temperature.
He says he gets as much out of the service he gives to the hospice as anyone does. "I'm very selfish," he says, which gets a good laugh from Elaine.
Mike adds: "It gives me a feeling of self-worth to be able to help others. It's an entirely humbling experience. If you think you are having a bad day, spend a day here and it's hard to feel sorry for yourself."
Mike's comments are echoed by the volunteers who buzz in and out, not only helping with very practical tasks, but adding special warmth to the atmosphere.
Volunteers run the reception, shop for groceries, fetch the milk from the hospital, provide delicious meals ready for other volunteers to present to clients, drive the quirky white van (also donated) to deliver equipment to homes of patients in the community, listen to clients' stories and write their biographies and do whatever else needs doing.
There are also the people who you don't see, but whose presence is everywhere. The members of the Marlborough Quilters Association who stitched the detailed landscape of Marlborough that hangs in the brightly lit foyer, for example. Other quilters contributed individual bedspreads for the rooms. The Marlborough Aquarium Club members provided the pretty fish tank, and return regularly to clean it.
Then there are those who knit the hats and booties on sale at the reception, drop in fruit, make that fruit into jam and sell it to raise money.
Also not to be forgotten are those who run the hospice stall at the Redwoodtown Market each Saturday morning, and all those who volunteer at the Hospice Shop in Redwoodtown (and those who donate goods to it).
Elaine has 225 people on her volunteer list and it's a credit to her that they all seem to come and go so smoothly (and a challenge to this writer to give everyone the recognition due). The hospice, on the grounds of Wairau Hospital, is Marlborough's refuge for the terminally ill. The four-bedroom facility opened after huge community fundraising six years ago. Two more rooms are being built and are scheduled to open in September, along with a new day room and quiet room.
Hospice manager Jenny Black says the hospice averages just over 90 per cent occupancy rate and between 60 to 70 clients are on the hospice programme in the community.
The volunteers' contribution is priceless, she says. So far this financial year they've given 8714 hours.
Many of the volunteers have personal reasons for wanting to help out. Wairau Garden Club member Viv Broughton picks olives from olive trees in the hospice garden, organises their pressing and presents the hospice with its own olive oil. Viv's mother died of cancer in a hospital ward. "I wished we had something like this when my mother was suffering."
A hopsice fundraising dinner will be held at Drylands Restaurant at 6pm on Saturday, June 27.
Celebrity chef Jo Seagar is the guest speaker. The dinner is organised by Beavertown Lions and House of Travel, from where tickets can be bought
