REM Award Honorees (2018) — Nick Pattison (Hospice Volunteers)
Nick Pattison is a Direct Care Volunteer at Hospice Volunteers of Waterville Area. He has loved working with many clients and families during his three years as a volunteer.
Nick has enjoyed developing strong relationships with clients helping them through times of uncertainty or vulnerability. In his senior year at Colby College, Nick studies Theater and Dance; he loves to be both onstage and behind the stage. In his spare time, he gardens at the Colby Farm, enjoys doing music, arts, and crafts, and loves to cook foods from around the world.
Nick is dedicated to the care, comfort, and wellbeing of his clients and their families. He is happy to be sharing his passion for working with older people.
The path that led Nick from upstate New York to Hospice Volunteers of Waterville Area began his first semester at Colby. His developmental psychology professor, Tarja Raag, suggested volunteering with Hospice. Raag, who teaches lifespan development, thinks it’s important for people to be comfortable with death and the dying process.
Nick has been assigned an older woman dying of lung disease, a man in the last stages of dementia, and another man who passed away before they could meet. For six months, Nick took it upon himself to assist the man’s widow, mowing her lawn, helping her pack up her house, so she could move to Texas, where her daughter lived. They became friends.
“You develop a relationship with your hospice clients, and then they die,” he said. “She left and it was like, I guess that’s the end here now, too.”
Nick takes these events to heart but also in stride, a valuable ability for hospice volunteers.
Nick will be attending a Masters in Social Work program at SUNY Albany in the fall, and hopes to continue working as a hospice volunteer wherever he goes!
We are thrilled to honor Nick as our REM Award winner this year.
For more information about Hospice Volunteers of Waterville Area, please visit its website.