EvergreenHealth Hospice is looking for volunteers willing to offer compassionate care to hospice patients and their families.

The comprehensive training received will help participants to understand the circumstances a hospice patient and their loved ones are facing, and give  participants the practical and emotional tools to feel confident about offering them assistance. Compassionate presence, just sitting quietly with a patient is another skill our training will provide.

This assistance can include: running errands, playing games, listening to a person’s life story, reading or singing, playing or listening to music or watching TV with a patient. A volunteer’s presence can help lessen a patient’s loneliness by providing them with companionship. Caregivers find relief when a volunteer comes by to stay with a patient while he or she enjoys some much needed personal time off.

Our volunteers can work in the field – in patient’s homes, adult family homes, and nursing homes – or in the hospice center. EvergreenHealth Hospice serves patients in King and Snohomish Counties and participants in the training program are free to choose where their assignment will be. Other positions include bereavement phone calling, Tuck-In phone calls, office support and front reception desk. We also have volunteers who make blankets, mittens, fleece hearts, positioning pillows, fidget aprons, hats, prayer shawls, or dolls for dementia patients.

Volunteers are integral members of the hospice team and receive support from their team including the social worker and nurse assigned to the family they are working with. Ongoing hospice education and friendly volunteer gatherings are offered throughout the year.

For more information email cmeast@Evergreenhealthcare.org or complete the application on the EvergreenHealth website.