As a long-serving volunteer, Earline has become a familiar face to many at Hospice, working in a number of roles across our service since 1990. From her first role in the kitchen to helping out in the office (which she tells us is now a cupboard!), answering the phones and helping the nurses, she has been a valued member of many Hospice teams.
When Earline’s husband Noel became a Hospice patient she experienced first-hand the care that Hospice provides to patients and families. But it didn’t stop her volunteering. Instead Noel would come with her and read his book in one of the lounges, or help out with a project, while Earline worked her shift. “He spent hours sweeping up when the courtyard by the IPU was being developed,” she recalls.
Earline says that her early training as a nurse aid, together with nursing her mother at a young age, gave her grounds to feel she “could be useful for helping people in a non-professional but eager way”.
Summing up her 25 years of volunteering with Hospice North Shore Earline says “I love it – anything I can do I am happy to do”.
She was one of the original volunteers helping out with the fortnightly Rotary breakfasts hosted at Hospice’s Shea Terrace board room, and has been a regular on the flower-arranging roster since joining the Takapuna Floral Art Club in 1994. She has made herself available of the “on call” roster “taking the occasional patient to radiation treatment” and otherwise helping out when needed at fundraising events; the most recent being the Hospice Cuppa at Peace and Plenty in Devonport during Hospice Awareness week in June.
July 2015
For more information on volunteering, please contact Volunteer Services by e-mail or on 09 485 3536.
