On any given day, hospice volunteers may be found:

• reading aloud or folding laundry
• going for a walk or giving a hug
• addressing envelopes or baking cookies
• washing dishes or writing letters
• painting fingernails or holding hands
• debating the prospects of the Mountaineers or just watching the game with a patient
• ...and always, always, listening.

Whether you choose to work with patients and their families in their homes, in long-term care facilities, or in our office, you can make a difference.

Patient Care Volunteers offer a supportive presence to patients and their families to ease their fears, their pain, and their loneliness on this last journey of their lives. In doing this, they give families weeks or months which, while a time of grief, can also be a time for deepening love. Often the primary need is for respite care – spending a few hours a week with a patient so that family caregivers have some time out of the house to take care of other family needs or just to relieve the stress of their 24 hour responsibilities. Volunteers then provide companionship and emotional support for the patients.

Administrative Volunteers help out in our office doing the hundred and one things it takes to keep an organization running.

Pet Activities Volunteers bring trained dogs and cats to visit patients to brighten their days.

Stephen Ministry Volunteers (a new program of Morgantown Hospice) provide spiritual support and a caring presence to patients or families requesting their visits.

We also have specialty volunteers who cut hair, play music, or help people write down their memories to bring families comfort in the future.

Maybe you are interested in doing something you don't see listed here. Yard work? Carpentry? Scrapbooking? Crafts? Please contact us. There are unlimited possibilities to make a difference in our patients' and families' lives. We would love to have your help

Extensive training is provided for all volunteer positions, as well as on-going opportunities to meet and learn from and with other volunteers and staff as part of the Morgantown Hospice family.

Is this difficult work? Sometimes. Will it make you cry? It might. Will it enrich your life in ways no volunteer commitment has before? Absolutely!

We need you. To talk about how you can help, call our Volunteer Coordinator, Kathleen Kennedy, at 304-285-2777 or email.

"I was motivated to become a Hospice Volunteer by a desire to give something back.  But once I had my first patient, I soon found that the spiritual and emotional rewards far outweigh the time and caring I contribute."

Dorothy Pesyna, Morgantown Hospice Volunteer