Auxiliary    

A core group of more than 50 volunteers working in as many different hospital departments, make up the Volunteer Auxiliary, started in 1982. Each volunteer pays annual dues, while 40 patron members donate $25-100 toward the work. The auxiliary members donate thousands of hours of time, and raise funds through donations, projects, and craft sales to furnish toiletry kits, Christmas gifts, phone cards, TV viewing guides, Bingo prizes, leg lifters for rehab patients, plants and artwork for patients’ rooms and assistance to family members in finding host homes. They take care of patients’ needs in every way they can.

Such lists cannot do justice to the devotion that the auxiliary and volunteers bring to their service. One example shows how much there is to the dedication of these unpaid workers. Eli Bloom, who was honored on May 17, 1991, at the annual Awards Benefit Dinner of the hospital foundation, was an outstanding voluntary helper for over 13 years—up to the time of his death—donating more than 12,000 hours. Bloom had one job, which he carried out superlatively: he greeted and served as a guide for thousands of visitors to the hospital. He was the first person that most visitors saw on entering the hospital lobby.

He had served as district attorney in Pitt County and then for the Third Judicial District for 50 years. On his retirement in 1983, he announced in the newspaper that he was going to work as a volunteer at the hospital. Then he visited Richardson, who sent him to the Director of Volunteer Services, Etsil Mason, asking her to take care of him. She asked Bloom what he wanted to do, and he replied that he intended to be a greeter in the lobby. Why did he choose that particular job? He said he knew everybody in Pitt County and had prosecuted half of them.

Mrs. Mason became the first full-time director of volunteer services in November 1981. When she arrived, there were 20 members of the hospital auxiliary and three volunteers working regularly. During the year before she came they had worked a total of 320 hours.

Up to the beginning of the year 2000, over 8,000 people had served as volunteers, seven of them for more than 5,000 hours each, and one for over 20,000. The average hours served by the top 10 volunteers during 1998-1999 were 790, and the annual total was regularly more than 100,000 hours.

The volunteer service was originally organized in April 1975, under the general direction of Craig Quick, then hospital personnel manager, after a visit from members of the N.C. Hospital Association’s Council on Hospital Auxiliaries. About 35 people volunteered, and worked mainly on three nursing floors, with a few serving at the information desk or doing clerical work. By September 23, new volunteers joined, and 16 members from the Greenville Service League increased the number to 66. In addition, Service League members worked in the Gift Shop. In October, the hospital Board of Trustees made the auxiliary official by approving its by-laws.

The hospital auxiliary held its first general meeting, chaired by Auxiliary Coordinator Mary McPherson, on November 11, 1975, and adopted by-laws. They also elected officers, and heard from a representative of the Greenville Service League about that organization’s history and its relationship with the hospital and community.

The auxiliary appears to have been viewed with some skepticism by the Service League, PCMH’s major community support organization. The importance of the league’s fund-raising efforts was exemplified in 1980-1981, when it raised more than $57,000 from the Gift Shop, hospitality shop and the snack cart. The profits that year were used to purchase new equipment, including a cardiac telemetry monitor.

In the fall of 1980, then-Director of Volunteer Service Adele Moos had a visit from a representative of the Office of Volunteer Services of the N.C. Department of Human Resources, who came to discuss the hospital’s program. The state Volunteer Services Office was particularly concerned with the lack of space for volunteers in the hospital, and with staff training.

When Mrs. Mason arrived, she said, she found that the volunteer program had deteriorated. The auxiliary was not functioning, and had evidently not functioned for some time. Her immediate goal was to obtain funds to support the volunteer service.

She had not been told that the Service League had the sole responsibility for fund-raising in the hospital, and had even negotiated a contract with the hospital administration to that effect. Relations between the volunteer service office and the league continued to be somewhat strained but without overt conflict until 1989.
Mrs. Mason began immediately in 1982 to collect money for toiletry kits for needy patients. Nurses in the third floor of the west bed tower where the volunteer department’s office was located requested her help, and she issued a plea to the public for funds to purchase the toiletries. By February 1982, she had started a book cart service to deliver reading material to all waiting rooms, had called a meeting of interested volunteers to form a hospital auxiliary, had started a transport service for patient discharges, and had trained some hospice volunteers.

The first members of the new hospital auxiliary were Louise Harrod, Edythe Price (who was the first president), Lois Riggs, Brenda Tyson-Hunter, and Jean Weaver, all of whom became very active volunteers. They began their fund-raising efforts in 1982 with $2,000 raised by a Radiothon on WNCT-AM/FM radio. The station donated 1,000 pounds of Easter candy for patients, and the volunteers bought materials, designed bags, and distributed the candy.

Mrs. Mason continued to solicit funds. In April, she opened a bank account for donations that had been collected but not yet spent. By the summer of 1982, volunteers had increased their hours of work from 893 the year before to 10,206 between January 1981 and June 1982.

In January 1983, the auxiliary officers wrote a new set of by-laws and presented them to the administration for approval, after review by the hospital attorney. The by-laws were finally approved in December.

During that month, the auxiliary began to solicit money from the hospital staff and the public to begin a rental program for infant car seats. The state matched the $1,500 raised, and in June, the car seat rental program acquired its first seats.

One of the auxiliary’s projects that was especially popular was the art program, in which the Volunteer Department built up a permanent collection through donations of money or artworks. In November 1984, volunteers held their first art show, opening with a public reception that was written up in newspapers as far away as Chapel Hill. The following April, the Southeastern Hospital Association honored PCMH’s auxiliary art program, and invited the department to send representatives to Atlanta to give a presentation about it.
The year 1985 saw the beginning of monthly art shows featuring the works of North Carolina artists, with shows of school children’s drawings and paintings each spring, and artwork, including photographs and needlework as well as drawings, paintings, and prints by medical school and hospital employees once a year.
In March 1987, the auxiliary took over the Bloodmobile service, whose operation they had assisted for several years before.

Each year the volunteers and auxiliary held a banquet to honor outstanding volunteers. At the seventh annual banquet on April 1, 1987, more than 500 PCMH volunteers were thanked for their service—over 40,272 hours during the previous year.

Mrs. Mason introduced the 10 volunteers who had each given more than 700 hours during the year. These were Bob Price (who had worked 1,237 hours), Mary Craft, Eli Bloom, Guy Watkins, Ann Stalls (who during the year reached an overall total of over 7,000 hours of volunteer work during several years), Dr. Al Conley, Edythe Price, Gertie Turner, Louise Harrod, and B. F. Good. She presented each volunteer with a certificate and a pin, and introduced as special guests the members of the hospital board, county commissioners, and hospital staff.

In September 1988, auxiliary president, Hila Johnson, went as a representative to the N.C. Society of Hospital Volunteers/Auxilians board. In the next May, the PCMH auxiliary hosted the NCSHV/A’s workshop in the district. Meantime, the volunteer advisory board had been approved by the administration to establish volunteer policies for the entire hospital, and volunteer services moved its office to a more visible location off the main lobby.

Tension Between Auxiliary and Service League

In July 1989 the auxiliary opened the Volunteer Service Center for craft sales, car seat rentals, library service, toiletry kits, and other patient services. The Greenville Service League lost little time in complaining to the hospital administration about the auxiliary’s venture into the sales arena, especially since the sales were going on next door to the Service League’s Gift Shop. The administration was sympathetic to the league’s objections, causing the volunteers and auxilians to stage a walkout in protest. The controversy was put aside during November and December for the auxiliary to work on their annual patient Christmas project and sale of baked goods and crafts. They provided patients with 100 poinsettias, 100 bags of fruit, 100 reindeer canes, 500 cards, and 100 gift packages.

A workshop was scheduled in November to discuss the disagreement, but the service league postponed it until after the beginning of the year.

In January 1990, the hospital replaced the volunteers in the critical care waiting room with paid staff. This eliminated 28 positions, with the loss of that number of volunteers. In March, the auxiliary held a strategy meeting, resolving not to disband but to move forward with its chosen mission of supporting the hospital and helping needy patients. Because of the unfavorable administration policy, the auxiliary considered terminating its membership in the state Society of Hospital Volunteers/Auxilians.

The controversy continued unresolved through 1990, and in December the Service League asked the administration to close the auxiliary service center. The administration decided that all Christmas items for sale in the shop should be removed. The auxiliary debated whether to picket the hospital, and met with the administration and Service League representatives to set up a committee to consider the issue.

In January 1991, Penny Cox, president of the auxiliary, set up a meeting with the hospital attorney to discuss the Service League’s contract with the hospital to carry on its fund-raising activities. Mrs. Mason and some of the volunteers thought that the administration was discriminating against the auxiliary, blocking it from carrying out its mission, and that the contract’s legality was questionable. The administration cancelled the meeting, and it was not until February that the auxiliary, league, and administration workshop committee had its first (and only) meeting. The dispute about fund-raising was not fully resolved, resentment continuing on both sides, particularly in volunteer services. However, the administration put forth efforts to show its appreciation of the importance of both groups.

At the March 1992 annual Volunteers’ Dinner held at the hospital, Dave McRae addressed the volunteers and their guests. He said, “Volunteers are a valued and necessary resource. You are an important part of the health-care team.” He noted that over 600 persons had worked as volunteers in the hospital and contributed 45,205 hours of service during the previous year. They represented “a true cross section of the community.” More than 60 departments utilized volunteers regularly.

By February 1994, the volunteers services department had grown to five paid staff members, and the 14th annual Volunteer Recognition Dinner at the Hilton Inn commended 39 volunteers who had donated 2,000 or more hours of service over the years. One of these, Guy Watkins, had a total of 13,746 hours, and Eli Bloom had given 13,736 hours. McRae welcomed the company, and Charles Fennessy, vice president for human resources, recognized the special guests.

The 20th annual volunteer recognition dinner on October 21, 1999, celebrated 58 volunteers who had donated 2000 hours or more. The monthly Volunteer Information Publication commented that Ina Venters had worked as a hospital volunteer in Admissions, Radiology and the Pastoral Care Department for 21 years. Eli Bloom was still cited in the dinner program for having donated more than 2,000 hours, and his name had been permanently inscribed on the honor roll plaque in the visitor lobby. His name did not appear in the year’s top ten, since he was no longer working as a volunteer, having died during the year.