REM Award Honorees (2012) — Karen Gilman and Louise Baker (Hospice Volunteers)
Hospice Volunteers of Waterville Area is pleased to honor two volunteers this year: Karen Gilman and Louise Baker.
Karen Gilman completed HVWA training in October 2009. She has been a very active direct care volunteer serving many Hospice clients at both Togus and in the Waterville Area, in homes and in nursing care facilities. She has done many activities such as riding clients around in wheelchairs, reading to them, and spending time chatting with them. Not too long ago she learned how to play a new card game that the client especially enjoyed.
When there is a need for a tender care volunteer, Karen doesn’t hesitate to sit with people who are dying so that they are not alone. Karen has been referred to as a little white haired lady that can really push those wheelchairs down the hallways. We truly appreciate Karen and all that she does for others.
Louise Baker started accepting clients in 2010 after completing the HVWA volunteer training that March. She has visited clients in their homes, giving much needed respite care to the caregivers who knew each week, at a given day and time, Louise would be there to provide companionship, allowing the caregivers time for themselves without worry. Louise displays her creative side by having conversations using a marker board for the hard of hearing. She also prepares meals encouraging the clients to eat, as well as doing the dishes while the family stopped by to visit the client, all the while being cheerful, pleasant and her soft spoken self.
Louise also, without hesitation, helps with tender care and sitting with clients and families during the last hours before their death. Recently, she was invited by a pastor, who is arranging a client’s memorial service, to attend because of all she had done for the family.
For more information about Hospice Volunteers of Waterville Area, please visit its website.