CEO Update: Experience the joy of serving through the CMH Auxiliary
Michael Calhoun shares the latest happenings at CMH in his monthly CEO Updates. He is the CEO/executive director of CMH and the Citizens Memorial Health Care Foundation.
The CMH Auxiliary has been an important part of Citizens Memorial Hospital since before the hospital opened. We certainly couldn’t fulfill our mission and achieve what we do as an organization without our volunteers. As we prepare to move into the hospital expansion this spring, the CMH Auxiliary will need more volunteers, not only at the hospital but across the organization.
Shantelle Posten, director of volunteers, and CMH Auxiliary member Lisette Shire joined me to talk about the Auxiliary. Continue reading the blog post or watch the video to learn more about:
- The Auxiliary’s mission
- What it’s like to volunteer
- Why you should volunteer
The Auxiliary’s mission
Posten: We are a support role. We’re there to help the staff, the patients and our visitors with anything non-medical. Our goal is to assist with hospital operations and ease the stress for the patients.
Calhoun: The volunteers do such a great job. Oftentimes, you’ll see volunteers at our front entryways as patients enter our facility. They are there to greet and to give instructions. At other times, we see the volunteers really stepping up as part of our gift shop.
Posten: We have volunteers who staff The Gift Garden completely Monday through Friday. They enjoy helping the patients and guests shop. Even the staff come in, and they’ll say this is just a nice place to get away and relieve a little bit of stress if the day is rough.
Calhoun: How many volunteers do we have?
Posten: Across the organization, we have 320 volunteers, but 218 are active right now.
Calhoun: The gift shop and other fundraising activities raise funds to help support health care operations.
Posten: We just donated $62,000 for a transit van that has a wheelchair lift in it to help folks get to their appointments. We give each of our long-term care facilities $300 at Christmas to buy gifts for the residents there, and we give to the scholarship fund. We gave $5,000 to the surgical center. By the end of this year, we will have donated $106,000.
Calhoun: All these things support the mission of what we’re trying to accomplish. And it shows one of the reasons, among many, that the Auxiliary is so important to what we do. We really, truly couldn’t achieve the mission without our Auxiliary members.
Posten: At our Hospitality House, we have a couple staying for at least eight weeks, which is a long time to be away from home. They’re from a different state and are going to spend the holidays with us. So they’re not only overwhelmed with their medical situation, but very grateful to be in a homelike setting where they’re well taken care of.
Calhoun: Our hospital expansion phase one is going to open this spring in 2026. We’re very excited about the expansion, but this is going to be exciting for the volunteers as well. So tell me about what the volunteers are most excited about related to the new expansion.
Posten: They’re very excited that you’re going to walk in the entrance and the first thing you see is our information desk that’s staffed by volunteers and our gift shop that is staffed by volunteers. It’s just going to be a really special area for us to be located.
What it’s like to volunteer
Calhoun: Lisette Shire is one of our volunteers at CMH, and I’m so pleased to have you here to talk about the Auxiliary. Lisette, how long have you been a volunteer at CMH?
Shire: I started volunteering after I retired in 2018. I was getting used to retirement, but I felt that something was missing. So I decided maybe I need to volunteer. CMH has been the best volunteer job I’ve had. It’s very rewarding.
Calhoun: What’s your role, and where do you volunteer?
Shire: I currently work one morning a week at The Gift Garden, and then I was asked to be on the Auxiliary board. I’m the recording secretary.
Calhoun: I’d like to hear from you about some of the stories you might have that show the impact of the volunteers on CMH and our community.
Shire: We have employees who come in and purchase a gift, perhaps for a patient who hasn’t had any visitors or for a co-worker who needs some encouragement. That is really amazing because they’re spending their own money to do this, and it shows the spirit of CMH. That’s the most rewarding thing I see is that the employees care for their patients and their co-workers.
Calhoun: Over the last few years, we’ve talked a lot about our desire to grow a culture of giving. That can mean a lot of different things. Giving your time, giving your attention, giving donations the way the Auxiliary does. The Auxiliary really emphasizes that desire we have as an organization to increase our culture of giving back to the community.
Shire: It’s also nice when someone comes into The Gift Garden not necessarily wanting to buy anything, but they’re scared, maybe someone’s in surgery. We’re able to talk to them quietly and just listen.
Calhoun: I have, on more than one occasion, seen our volunteers having a conversation with some of those individuals who are going through a hard time. I thought what a comfort that must be to them because at CMH we do care for people in sometimes their most vulnerable times. It’s probably the thing I’m most proud of in the organization, that we have people who care, who are there for people during those times. I think it comes from within people. I’m just so proud of our caregivers and our volunteers who have that kind of heart.
Why you should volunteer
Shire: I really enjoy working. I would suggest to anyone that if you want to be a volunteer, it’s so rewarding. You get so much more than you give.
Calhoun: It’s a great way to serve your community. It’s a great way to be involved. And it gives you some relationships with some really great people. You become a part of our CMH team and a part of our CMH mission. We would invite anyone who has an interest to come and join this great team of volunteers and be a volunteer yourself.
Posten: I think you’ll find it very rewarding. You can email me at shantelle.posten@citizensmemorial.com or call me at 417-328-6432. We’ll be glad to get you going with our team.
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