Heritage Snapshot: Part 101

In September, 1958, the Loma Linda Sanitarium and Hospital organized the Volunteer Service League to staff and manage the funds of the Gift Corner in the main lobby. Two years later, the new organization donated four rocking chairs to the hospital, the first of a series of gifts which to date have totaled over $2.8 million. Additionally, since 1958 volunteers have donated well over 4.3 million hours to patients of the Medical Center, Children’s Hospital, East Campus Hospital, Heart and Surgical Hospital, Behavioral Medicine Center, and other entities. The first major monetary gift was a 1969 donation of $40,000 to build a heliport on the north wing of the University Hospital. In 1971 the Volunteers donated $50,000 to equip a helicopter ambulance for the Medical Center’s new Air Medical Service. Volunteers have escorted patients, manned the patient library cart and the information desk, waited on customers in the Gift Shop, delivered newspapers, snuggled babies, and provided emotional support to cancer and heart patients. During the early years, women volunteers were known as “Pink Ladies.” Men were identified as “Red Jackets.” And youth were called “Candy Stripers.” In the late 1970’s the Volunteer Service League volunteers began assisting in the Child Life Program, incorporating social, emotional, developmental, and physical aspects of whole patient care. Volunteers staffed a play room for little patients to solve puzzles, make finger paintings, look at books, and play in sand boxes. Child Life volunteers continue to contribute almost 14,000 hours a year providing psychosocial interaction in the activity rooms and at the bedsides. Chapter 34 of the Mended Hearts, Inc. organized in Loma Linda in 1977 to provide volunteer support for heart patients and their families, plus financial support to the Department of Cardiology in the School of Medicine. Notable volunteers include Rosemary Kennedy, volunteer from September of 1988 through the year of 2004, who donated almost 14,000 hours to the Mended Hearts program. The Medical Center Volunteer Services founded the Care Connection Van Service in 1985 to transport patients from Sun City to Loma Linda and back, (Mondays through Fridays). The yellow van dubbed “Old Yella” was funded and driven by volunteers. The Volunteer Service League replaced Old Yella in 1990 with “Blue and White”—which traveled more than 200,000 miles. In 2007, Administration purchased a new white Care Connection Van which was labeled “the Turtle” to continue to provide this service. With the dissolution of the Volunteer Service League in the early 1990’s, the Department of Volunteer Services continued to carry the torch of volunteerism. The league donated the remaining balance of its monies, over $500,000, to the construction of Children’s Hospital. Volunteer Services expanded in 1993 with the opening of the Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital. Volunteers helped move patients into “the new place for little faces.” Special volunteer Raylene Phillips developed a Snuggler Program in the neonatal intensive care unit in May of 1994. Snugglers are valued by the nursing staff for the love and attention they give to their little patients. Volunteer Raylene has gone on to become a neonatalogist. In 1994, Volunteer Services started its Pet Enrichment Therapy (PET) Program. PET volunteers and dogs visit the hospital regularly and provide companionship, diversion, and unconditional love to patients of all ages. In 1997, Volunteer Services inaugurated a Cancer Visitation Program to provide emotional support for oncology patients. To provide a healing environment, volunteer professional painters, in harmony with the latest interior design concepts, painted a garden-like atmosphere with purple wisteria that trails down marbled columns. They added colorful artwork and silk flower arrangements to provide a soothing atmosphere for the patient unit. The Big Hearts for Little Hearts Guild was founded in 1999 and began a voluntary philanthropic fundraising program for the Children’s Hospital. The Medical Center and Children’s Hospital Gift Shop volunteers donate more than 13,500 hours each year. In addition to serving customers, they unpack merchandise, assemble products as necessary, and price items. Their smiles and helping hands encourage patients, families and staff alike. There are many community partners who provide service from their homes spending more than 169,000 hours yearly making toy cars, blankets, quilts, booties, hats, heart pillows, jellybean pillows, mastectomy pillows, chemo hats, Easter baskets, Christmas stockings, art kits, lap robes, and infant clothing. Another sample of those loving hands is the volunteer who created a special “dress” for the conjoined Roderick twins and then outfits for them after they were separated. The year of 2008 saw the opening of the new Cancer Center in Schuman Pavilion and the creation of the Cancer Center Tea Cart with volunteers offering snacks and beverages to cancer patients. Other new programs that year included Patient Unit Programs on Maternity and 6th Floor. In 2009, volunteers began driving the Golf Cart, serving at the new Heart and Surgical Hospital, visiting on Patient Units 3100 and Heart, and providing “No One Dies Alone”. Even before the League was made official in 1958, volunteers were there to assist wherever needed. They rocked babies, read stories, held hands and whispered prayers for the patients and staff of the hospital. These giving people have allowed the hospital to further its mission “To Make Man Whole” by attending to the needs of the spirit, whether creating a cuddly blanket, wiping tears or simply by listening. The Department of Volunteer Services is a melting pot of people of various ages, ethnicities and walks of life. But they all have one common goal: Sharing and caring enough to help others, to serve and to give.