Volunteer Stories

Dick Dale is a retired Rochester police captain, a husband, a father, a friend and an outstanding volunteer in our community. Mayo Hospice is just one of the local organizations that are blessed to be served by his passion and high regard for his fellow man.

Dick has been a Mayo Hospice volunteer since May of 2000. Since that time he has donated over 1356 hours in service to over 40 of our patients and their families. Every one of those hours was provided with great compassion and commitment.

I have always found Dick to be reliable and devoted to the assignments he has been given. He has never said no, to helping someone out. In all situations, he goes above and beyond what is asked of him. This was most apparent to me when I asked Dick to help fulfill a request for a 95 year old gentleman living in an assisted living facility in southern Fillmore County. I don’t often ask our Olmsted County volunteers to travel that far, but as soon as I heard a little about Fred and what his goals were, I knew that Dick was the man for the assignment.

Fred could be described as a local historian. His goal was to get out of the assisted living and go for a ride in the country to check out the farms and the crops. I contacted Dick and asked him to make the long trip to Fred’s and take him out for a one-time drive through the countryside. Dick’s first visit with Fred was in October of 2008. Dick helped Fred get himself and his oxygen hoisted into his truck and they headed out. Dick and Fred put on 100 plus miles that day. They followed every country road, paved and unpaved, in southern Fillmore County that they came across. Dick was fascinated with the stories Fred shared and the fact that at the age of 95 he was able to recall the family names attached to every farm they passed. Dick thanked me for such an ideal assignment.

Dick patiently and joyfully made this same trip every week with Fred until Fred died in February of 2010. Dick logged over 8000 miles on his truck for Fred during that time. Dick will tell you that the time he spent escorting Fred on his many adventures were some of the best times he ever spent volunteering. When we remember Fred, Dick lights up and smiles as he recalls his fondest memories of their time together. Dick is convinced that he got far more from that assignment than Fred ever did.

Dick repeatedly displays this same devotion and caring with every patient he has contact with. His favorite type of assignment is one that allows him to help patients attain special goals. He has assisted avid golfers in getting out on the course one more time. He has escorted an elderly patient out to a special restaurant one last time. He has fulfilled an ALS patient’s goal of having a beer with his cronies at the VFW. He has videotaped a patient’s life story as a gift to the patient’s family and friends. He has modified patient’s furniture to allow them to stay in their home. He has hung Christmas lights for an elderly patient. He has recruited friends to become involved with hospice as volunteers. There is nothing he won’t do if it will help out a patient and their family.

Dick is a treasure, a kind and caring man who regards being part of the hospice team a gift.

Submitted by Patti Rankin, Mayo Hospice Program Volunteer Coordinator

In 2008, Lucille Oberg received the Volunteer Service Award. Lucille has been a hospice volunteer with Park Nicollet Methodist Hospice in St. Louis Park for 16 years. Lucille has a special capacity for helping people through an experience that can be very frightening–the dying process. Here is an excerpt from one of the award nomination letters: Lucille has extraordinary empathy, and she is not afraid to be present with and for people who are experiencing physical, emotional, or spiritual pain. She accepts people for whomever and whatever they are…she has the ability to see gifts that each person brings to this world and focus on those gifts. She has eternal patience, a gentle touch, warm smile and a wonderful twinkle in her eyes. She walks in a room and creates calm.

When Lucille accepted the award at the 2008 End-of-Life Conference, she said:

One of the many reasons why I became a hospice volunteer is the fact that I could be a listener instead of a speaker. When I met my first patient eighteen years ago, he asked if I liked music. “Of course,” I said and he pulled out a guitar, played and sang for an hour and a half.

Not all cases have been that easy, but I have gained so much from my experiences. The many clients and their families have provided wonderful memories and enduring relationships.

It is my hope that we continue to learn from those we care for, from each other, and that we all continue to reach out to those in need. As my favorite client, Pop, use to say, “Keep a smile on your face and a song in your heart.”

“My mission in life is not finished.” -June Young

When June Young submitted her hospice volunteer application, she checked almost every item under the question “Where do you feel you can be of service?” For more than a dozen years, June has served First Care Medical Services Hospice in every possible volunteer role.

June has made 271 patient visits in the past five years. She visits, holds hands, reads Scripture and sings to patients. She also provides care for grieving family members through individual contacts and in support group settings. In 2004 June added spiritual care to her hospice volunteer roles. She has made 380 in-person spiritual care visits to patients and families.

In addition to her average 220 in-person patient care, bereavement and spiritual care visits per year, June helps out with fundraising and community outreach: helping with the annual Memorial and Light-Up-A-Life services; serving at the spaghetti supper (see photo), and greeting visitors and taking photos of kids with Santa at the Tree Walk for Hospice. June also does community speaking about hospice and participates in new volunteer training.

First Care serves patients who live within 30 miles of Thief River Falls. Last year June logged over 6,800 miles as she made her hospice volunteer visits.

There is no end to what June will do for hospice, and she continues to say she’d like to do more. She has been a support and role model for the staff, who often comment, “I want to be like June some day.” June celebrated her 80th birthday in February (2007).

Submitted by Kelly Rogalla, First Care Medical Services Hospice, Thief River Falls

Bunny Iverson signed up for hospice volunteer training in 1993 as “preparation for retirement.” Al Iverson joined the hospice team in 1994. Since then, Bunny and Al have helped over one hundred Rice Hospice patients and their families. Bunny and Al have worked together and separately. They have been assigned to patients dying at home and in the nursing homes and have been specially trained to be present with patients and families in the last hours of life. They have provided bereavement services to grieving family members.

In each new situation, they figure out just the right way to help that particular patient and family. It is often the little things that make the biggest difference when the end of life is near. Bunny and Al have taken patients out for ribs (a nurse cam along), helped compose a family’s Christmas letter, made lunch (numerous times) and sour cream raisin pie, helped choose music for a funeral, taken one patient fishing and another to his driving test.

Bunny and Al exemplify what hospice is all about: living each day and helping others so that they can enjoy each day to the fullest as well.

Note: Bunny and Al Iverson received Hospice Minnesota’s Volunteer Service Award at the 2006 End-of-Life Conference in St. Cloud, Minnesota.

Milton Dunham began volunteering with Allina Hospice & Palliative Care early in 1999. Since then, he has contributed over 700 hours of service to hospice patients and their families.

Milton has a reputation for being willing to go anywhere and do almost anything, from walking the very spirited family dog to sitting with the patient to provide respite for family caregivers. As one of Allina’s specially-trained “Eleventh hour” volunteers, Milton makes himself available at a moment’s notice to spend the night at the bedside of a dying patient.

He once accepted an Eleventh Hour assignment on Christmas Eve. The patient died that night, and Milton returned on the day of the funeral to spend the entire day assisting the family. After the funeral, the family wanted to take a group photo. Milton offered to be the photographer, but the family refused his offer—they insisted that he be IN the family photo.

To quote the daughter of one of Milton’s “Eleventh Hour” patients, “There could not have been a more perfect person to be at Mom’s bedside at the end to show her the way home.”

Note: Milton Dunham received Hospice Minnesota’s Volunteer of the Year Award at the 2005 Annual Conference in St. Cloud, Minnesota.

The Twin Cities Jewish Healing, through the wisdom and traditions of Judaism, offers comfort, hope and strength to people experiencing loss, life challenges, illness, dying and grief. The Healing Program provides trained volunteers to visit Jews who request a visit in hospitals, nursing homes and in hospice care.

Nancy Fursetzer was one of the Healing Program’s first volunteers to complete hospice volunteer training. The name “Amy” is fictitious, changed to respect confidentiality. Here is Nancy’s account of her first hospice visiting experience.

After extensive training, I was asked to visit a woman—a woman of my own age—who was dying of cancer. Gathering courage for my first volunteer experience, I looked up at an anonymous quote framed on my wall: “JUST FOR TODAY I will be unafraid, and believe that as I give to the world, so will the world give to me.” And I agreed to meet her.

At our first visit Amy told me that she had moved twelve times with her husband’s job. She’d acclimated herself with each city’s Jewish community by volunteering to be president of a local synagogue! But there was no time for this in Minneapolis. Shortly after arriving here she was diagnosed with cancer and enrolled in hospice. She was feeling lonely and requested a volunteer.

In addition to the typical assistance given all hospice patients, I inquired if there were any Jewish items that might ease her journey—books, prayers, music, food? She asked for a Rabbi, who renewed her marriage bonds with her husband in a beautiful Jewish ceremony.

Amy also craved traditional Jewish comfort food. She had loved cooking and missed her own recipes. I offered to prepare her own “kugel” recipe, and from this a loving ritual developed. Each visit I borrowed one of her beloved recipes and returned the next week with her favorite foods. This led to a kind of “life review” through Amy’s recipes, which re-ignited treasured memories for Amy and her husband.

At one visit, Amy told me that she had already made her own funeral arrangements. “Not much left to do.” Then with a twinkle in her eye she said, “But there is one thing—would you help me write my obituary?” For the next few weeks I “interviewed” her, and together we wrote an obituary that captured the essence of her values and her Jewish life.

One day Amy said to me, “I could never do what you do.”

I laughed and said, “And I could never be president of a synagogue!”

On our last visit, I found her in a hospital bed in her living room. I took her hand, and she said to me with concern, “Are you alright? Does it upset you to see me like this?” That visit we said goodbye. I held her hand a short while until she fell asleep.

She died a few days later. She was my first hospice patient. She touched my life and changed it for the better.

Written by Nancy Fursetzer and submitted by Judy Marcus, Volunteer and Resource Coordinator for The Twin Cities Jewish Healing Program

Note: The Twin Cities Jewish Healing Program and hospice providers in theTwin Cities have worked together closely to ensure that all Jewish hospice patients wanting Jewish Hospice Volunteers, Jewish clergy visits, and/or Jewish ritual items will receive them. Jewish Hospice Volunteers establish a crucial link for Jewish hospice patients to the wider Jewish community and to traditions that can provide strength in time of crisis. In addition, the Healing Program provides educational programs for health care professionals. The Francine and Neil Feinberg Healing Resource Library located at Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Minneapolis has articles, books, audiotapes, and audiovisual tapes available for loan. For information about The Twin Cities Jewish Healing Program, its services, educational programs, and volunteer opportunities, please call (952) 542-4864.