Springs Nursing and Rehabilitation Center welcomes volunteers
There are many opportunities for people who want to share their talent and time with others in our listening area, and one of the most appreciated is at the The Springs Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center in Hot Springs. I spoke to some one who knows.
“My name is Sally Maloney and I’m the Director of Community Life.”
“Well we’re always looking for volunteers. Some of our volunteers who come in just come in to reminisce with residents. We have some that come in and do Bingo, hand out Bingo cards and sit with residents who might need help playing games. We have people who come in and help hand out library books and things like that.”
“Is there anyone who likes to be read aloud to?”
“Definitely. We do have a wonderful program here at the Springs for our residents, and that is Books on Tape, and the residents can sit and listen to Books on Tape, but they still need assistance with it, or the volunteer can just sit and read to them. Bring a story in, one of their favorite stories that they’d like to read.”
“Or even a local news paper, or something like that?”
“Sure, and we’re always looking for newspapers, even if they’re a day or two old. We like to have people donate newspapers to us. Our newspapers can’t be any more than two months old, for magazines and news papers.”
Sally continued about some more of the ways volunteers are already helping, and mentioned there is always room for more.
“Well, we have one to one visitation. We take residents for walks around the facility. We have a lot of people who come in and play music for us. We’d love to have that every day if we could. They help with games, reading group. They assist with parties, serving at parties, helping decorate for parties. They assist with getting residents to and from the events. We have a few people who come in and do gardening with the residents. We have a few people who are pen pal people who help them write pen pal letters. We do also have nine churches in the area whose pastors come in and do services for us on Sundays. But we’re still looking for a pastor who will do a fifth Sunday. On the months that we have a fifth Sunday, we don’t have a pastor for that.”
Listeners may hear from The Springs again closer to Christmas when a whole team of elves is needed to be part of that celebration.
“What does it actually take to get signed up?”
“To get signed up to be a volunteer, we have two different types of volunteers. Our junior volunteers are fourteen through seventeen, and they need permission from their parents, and there are some forms they need to fill out. Some high schools recommend that children volunteer for so many hours a year. Well, they can use their volunteer hours towards their goals for that. And we also have adult volunteer applications. They’re a little bit more involved. We do background checks with these applications and there are some forms they’ll need to fill out for that. They still do get their volunteer service hour forms, that tell how many hours they volunteered, and what they did during that time. For our junior volunteers, I think it’s really good for them, because those forms, actually show ‘this is what they did; this is what they learned, this is how many hours they put into it, and it looks good on their first application or resume.”
I asked Sally for her direct line for anyone wanting to learn more about being a volunteer.
“It’s 685-0494”
And before we signed off Sally reminded me of another important opportunity coming up quickly at the The Springs.
“We are currently accepting applications for the upcoming CNA classes. Classes start Monday, August 6th, 2018. Two weeks of classroom, two weeks of clinical. Students will be paid an hourly rate while attending the class. Guaranteed employment upon licensure. For more information, call 839-2299. And they can call the 839-2299, and they can talk to anybody, and we’ll be able to get them in the class.”
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