Marguerite O'Neill told me that she has
been an RSVP volunteer at Little Company of Mary for the past six
years. She initially started out with "Company Calls" (a Little
Company of Mary volunteer organization that visits with shut-ins)
but said "that the director here was so sweet that I decided to
become a volunteer Floater at the hospital instead." She was
proud to show me her 2,000 hour pin and said she was actively
working on replacing it with one for 3,000 hours of service.
Marguerite said that the people at the hospital treat all the
volunteers like they are someone special and that she loves the
work she does there. Although she now works as a "Day Chairman"
and no longer does duty as a "floater" she informed me that this
is the term used for a volunteer that "floats" (or more
correctly, "moves rapidly") between the many facilities in the
hospital; delivering needed Pharmaceuticals and charts as and
when required. However, as well as moving "things" they also help
to transport people: either checking in or out of the hospital as
well as between the various wards. Not a floater herself any
more, her responsibilities now include assigning available
floaters to help move patients or pick up and deliver lab charts
and pharmaceuticals as the orders come in over the computer
terminal in the Volunteer Office. She said that, although the
volunteers are eligible for a free lunch after they have put in a
four hour shift everyone feels that the main plus for the job was
in just meeting all the people - and you do get to meet a lot of
people when you work as a floater. She told me that "The biggest
satisfaction, at our age, is that we feel useful and helpful -
that's what we all really like." I asked Marguerite what she had
done before she retired and became an active volunteer and she
informed me that she had worked many years for the Torrance
School District, both as a secretary in the office and as a
substitute teacher and playground aid. Her husband also works as
a volunteer with the Police Department.Lillian Giff preferred to use the term "runner" instead of "floater" when I asked her what she did at the hospital. Until she retired six years ago, Lillian was actually in charge of Same Day Surgery at the hospital. It took less than a year of sitting at home watching the soaps to convince her that she really needed to get back in to some form of active involvement once more, and she ended up volunteering two days a week in her current capacity. Counting her last six years in semi-retirement, Lillian told me that she had now been associated with Little Company of Mary for a total of thirty six years. She loves still being involved with the hospital and said that her typical day starts at 7:15 in the morning and that, as she is usually the only volunteer on hand until around 8:30, she is kept fairly busy making deliveries of various pharmaceuticals during those early hours. Lillian thinks that they have a very good bunch of volunteers at the hospital and that the patients really enjoy being around them. She originally became aware of how much they were appreciated by the patients and the staff when she was working as a permanent employee and had as many as ten of them working with her each week. At the moment she was also interfacing with some of the younger volunteers from local high schools and said that many of these youngsters actually decide to go into the medical profession after they graduate.
Although Little Company of Mary makes full use of the volunteers that they have on their books, both Lillian and Marguerite stressed that the Hospital Volunteer Office could certainly utilize the services of many more, and would appreciate any help that RSVP could give them towards this aim. Whether working as a "floater" or at a designated post, they said that attempts will always be made to place any volunteer who expresses a particular interest within reach of that aspect of the hospital environment.
