Volunteer
The Hospice has to raise $5 million each year to maintain its service across Otago – ensuring that anyone needing specialist palliative care gets that care no matter where they live, no matter what illness they have, no matter what their age.
Our volunteers are a crucial part of the Hospice service equation – with a contribution worth $1 million each year. On any given week, we have 400 volunteers helping us out across 900 work hours.
Our Inpatient Unit relies on dozens of kitchen volunteers who work morning and evening shifts. The evening shift is a solo role from 5 - 7.30, ensuring the patients are well nourished. We also rely on volunteers receptionists – from 5pm to 7pm each week night and 9am to 6pm (broken into shifts) in the weekend - who steer people in the right direction, ensure phone calls end up in the right hands, and present a warm and generous presence as people enter our Hospice.
Our Hospice Shops depend upon hundreds of volunteers to keep the shelves stocked. Our beautiful gardens would be nothing without the continuous care and attention lavished on them by our committed gardeners. And then there is our band of housekeepers keeping order during the weekends; biographers, creating stories out of lives well lived; the maintenance crew, the administrators who help us with our art register, our databases and anything else that needs a tidy up; and the hundreds of volunteers who turn up rain or shine during our Street Appeal Day and for the annual Rotary Trailer Raffle.
Without these volunteers – right across the Otago region – Hospice could not do what it does.
Otago Community Hospice takes pride in ensuring we look after our volunteers. We want our volunteers to have valuable and rewarding experiences with us; that means ensuring each and every volunteer is effectively inducted into their role with the Hospice. We also celebrate our volunteer workforce throughout the year with regular newsletters and annual social events. We have dedicated staff who provide ongoing support, training and education for the volunteers.
If you are interested in becoming part of the Hospice Volunteer Crew, please call us on 03 473 6005, email volunteer@otagohospice.co.nz or complete the form below: