Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Photograph by Robert Scheer

Columbia Good Samaritan Hospital Junior Volunteer Kristin Hoeft gives new mother Rebecca Knuth a cheerful sendoff after escorting her to the parking lot for her trip home.

A New Breed

Polo shirts identify today's committed teen volunteers

By Michelle Alaimo

Teenagers in teal polo shirts and khaki pants file into the patient-services office at Columbia Good Samaritan Hospital. The Junior Volunteers eagerly wait for their shift leader, Kristin Hoeft, 17, to assign them duties for the evening. As Hoeft checks to see what needs to be done, the phone rings, and all the volunteers wait attentively to see who will be assigned the errand. But Hoeft decides that she will handle this call. It is for the discharge of a new mother and her baby.

Hoeft takes the wheelchair up to the fifth floor and guides it to Rebecca Knuth's room, where she finds Knuth, her husband, Erik, and their day-old baby, Kevin, eager to go home. Rebecca sits in the wheelchair, holding her newborn lovingly in her arms. Erik grabs the bags, and Hoeft wheels the new mother out to the car. The young volunteer checks to make sure they have a car seat and waits until everyone is secured safely in the car. She assures the first-time parents that they are doing great and wishes them luck.

Meanwhile, Ryan Basham, 17, works in the reception and information booth, answering questions and directing people to various locations in the hospital. He also fields phone calls when people call to find out which rooms friends and family are in. His job occasionally calls for him to take a medical chart to a nurses' station or to deliver a food tray.

Basham and Hoeft, both Los Gatos residents, could be home relaxing, hanging out with friends or watching television. Both, however, say they'd rather spend their time doing their volunteer work at the hospital.

"The 312 hours I put into the hospital each week is much more valuable than sitting at home," Basham says.

Basham, a junior at Bellarmine College Preparatory, hopes to become a doctor someday. Both of his parents work in the medical field and suggested to him that being a volunteer is a good way to learn how a hospital operates.

Both males and females serve as Junior Volunteers and spend 312 hours a week helping out at the hospital. Currently, there are 170 Junior Volunteers at the hospital.

In the old days, they would have been called Candystripers, but no longer. The name "Candystripers" no longer applies, Hoeft explains, because it is a stereotype for teenage girls in short dresses with red stripes.

Mary McCall, the hospital's coordinator of volunteer services, says the old white shirt and pink pinafores made volunteers look as though they just crawled out of bed. About two years ago, the uniforms were changed to become more unisex and easier for the volunteers to handle, McCall says. A lot of the volunteers carry around their uniform in their backpack at school and then change when they get to the hospital. McCall says it only made sense to change the uniforms to a spiffy teal polo shirt that can be carried around in a backpack without becoming wrinkled.

Junior Volunteers pay $15 for their polo shirts, but they don't seem to mind. The volunteers look much better in their new uniforms, McCall says, and it helps to differentiate Junior Volunteers from the senior volunteers.

"Junior Volunteers provide a great service to patients," McCall says. "It's not so much the tasks, but the way they do them."

Junior Volunteers are responsible for a variety of duties. The largest group works in patient services delivering flowers, answering phones, filing charts, escorting and moving patients and answering general questions. Others are assigned to the pharmacy, mother and baby unit, medical records, labor and delivery, pediatrics, reception and information or the skilled nursing unit.

Hoeft, a senior at Los Gatos High School, has been a Junior Volunteer for 312 years. She is currently the Tuesday night shift leader, which means she manages the volunteers for the evening, runs errands and performs office functions.

Hoeft says she became involved in the Junior Volunteer program because she knew it would be a good learning experience.

Students become involved in the Junior Volunteer program for a variety of reasons, but all must meet certain requirements before being accepted.

Junior Volunteers must be age 14-18 and can only apply in April and September of each year. They must maintain at least a B average in school.

Junior Volunteer shifts are weekdays from 4 to 7:30 p.m. and weekends from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., 12:30 to 4 p.m. or 4 to 7:30 p.m. Both the volunteer and his/her parents sign a contract that explains what is expected of them.

"Cream-of-the-crop kids apply for Junior Volunteer positions," McCall says, adding that only about 30 percent of those who apply are selected.

Junior Volunteers get a good opportunity to learn about volunteer commitment through an additional requirement--to belong to the Junior Auxiliary, another volunteer organization whose purpose is to provide assistance wherever needed at the hospital. Volunteers must pay dues of $10 to the organization to help fund meetings and conferences they attend.

Brian Chen, 18, the current Junior Auxiliary president, loves being a Junior Volunteer. "It's gotten to be a second home," Chen, a Saratoga resident, says. He will be leaving to attend UC-San Diego this fall and said he will miss working as a volunteer at Good Sam.

Hoeft has been thinking about a career in medicine for a long time and wanted to volunteer at the hospital to see if that would help her decide. She notes that there are all sorts of reasons young people want to work in the Junior Volunteer program, but those who volunteer just to beef up their résumés usually don't last long. "Junior Volunteers need to come in with the right attitude," she says.

Hoeft's interest in a career in the medical field is common to many of the volunteers, according to McCall. They are learning firsthand what goes on in a hospital and how to perform tasks that doctors and nurses don't always have time for, such as stocking baby supplies and filing medical charts. The volunteers occasionally help entertain patients.

Hoeft remembers a time she was working in pediatrics and a little boy was crying a lot. "Once I went in and played with him, he was so happy, he stopped crying," she recalls.

Patients are counting on the volunteers to provide them assurance, McCall says. While volunteers don't have as much contact with the patients as nurses do, the contact they do have is helpful. Sometimes all a patient needs is someone to talk to or a smiling face delivering flowers.

"They bring that extra time to patients," McCall says. "They are bringing time that the staff may not be able to spend."

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