Volunteer program on Rose Garden Hospice to-do list
The Rose Garden Hospice will recognize its first major milestone when World Hospice Day arrives on Saturday.
Rose Garden staff have a small, quiet ceremony planned for Friday to recognize the day. Hospice executive director Brett Enns said it’s a wonderful opportunity to recognize the people who provide palliative care across the health care sector.
“We just would shout-out to those who currently provide palliative care within our community, certainly our homecare team and the folks who are in the hospital, the nursing teams that are working on the floors to help those folks there, (we) just want to shout them out,” Enns said.
“To all the health care providers who help to work with people who are in those really difficult times. We just join hands with them as we celebrate this day.”
Friday’s ceremony will mark the first World Hospice Day since Rose Garden officially opened. Enns said they’ll have a quiet ceremony on Friday, highlighted by some words from a guest who has a loved one staying in the hospice.
“We’re just so thankful we can have a hospice in Prince Albert and devote specific time and energy and support to families and loved ones who use this type of service,” Enns said.
The Rose Garden Hospice benefited from a range of community volunteers who helped raise money before and during construction. Enns said he’s still hearing from residents who want to volunteer at the facility, so they’re planning on creating new opportunities.
“We’re looking forward to actually launching, in the not-to-distant future, a whole volunteer program,” Enns explained. “(We’re) looking at opportunities for people to help out in the kitchen with baking or reading to a guest, or just being with a guest, holding their hand, … or helping out in the yard, cutting grass, raking leaves, or trimming flowers, those kinds of things.
“Any successful hospice will tell you that one of the most important pieces is those who volunteer…. We’ve already had lots of people who’ve said they want to volunteer. It’s just trying to get everything in line so that we can actually bring those folks on.”
Enns said Prince Albert and the surrounding areas have a great volunteer spirit, so he’s confident they’ll have no trouble filling those roles.
“(It’s) been overflowing and incredible for the hospice here,” he said.
“Gifts of money, of time, of their talents, what they can create, has just been so important to the life of this hospice, and will continue to be an ongoing important feature. Volunteerism, whatever way it comes in, has just been so appreciated.”
