At Petaluma Valley Hospital, volunteers help the healing

Their actions lift spirits, provide comfort and offer a welcome reprieve for people often at their most vulnerable.

Volunteers at Petaluma Valley Hospital have diverse talents but are linked by compassion and a desire to serve. Collectively, they enhance the hospital experience for outpatients and those healing from surgery, battling illness or having babies.

Through their service, they enable doctors, nurses and support staff to focus on patient care.

Volunteers include a professional musician with a portable keyboard and a soothing voice, a gentle rescue dog that generates smiles and hugs and a team of auxiliary members in baby-blue smocks dubbed “The Blue Angels” for their caring manner.

“It really is about contributing back to your community,” said Stephanie Bodi, volunteer services coordinator and patient relations representative at the 80-bed community hospital operated by St. Joseph Health.

“It’s all of us working together to take care of our patients and our community’s health,” she said.

Bodi oversees volunteer programs that include the 55-member Petaluma Valley Hospital Auxiliary, “the heart and soul of our hospital programs,” she said.

The hospital also offers a Junior Volunteer program for teens 14 to 18 who want to explore career possibilities or just give back to their community, a pre-nursing and pre-med program for college students and administrative opportunities for volunteers to help prepare patient packets and informational folders.

Others donate their time as volunteer chaplains, and St. James Catholic Church provides a Eucharist ministry.

Additionally, the Petaluma Arts Center hosts an ongoing art show along the hospital corridors that’s curated to create a healing environment.

“We’re trying to create as good of an experiences for our patients as we can,” Bodi said, with the “body, mind and soul” all taken into account.

A few volunteers share their experiences below. Each believes she gets more in return than she gives.

Professional musician Susan Kay Gilbert

Susan Kay Gilbert brings a special harmony to Petaluma Valley Hospital, where her portable keyboard and soothing voice cheer patients, visitors and staff members.

A professional musician, Gilbert, 54, brings an element of surprise to patient rooms and hallways but always asks permission to perform. A cancer survivor – she prefers “cancer thriver” – Gilbert knows that not every patient is up for an unexpected performance.

Most do welcome the opportunity to hear a few songs, from Elvis Presley’s “Love Me Tender” or the Beatles’ “Let it Be” to the classic “Amazing Grace.”

“I ask what genre they like and resonate with,” she said. “If they’re at too high a level of pain, I’ll make a decision based on my own intuition.”

Her repertoire is broad.

“I do everything from sacred religious songs to head-banging metal,” said Gilbert, a Petaluma resident who shares her talents at the hospital every Thursday morning.

A lyricist and composer, Gilbert also performs original songs like the two she currently has on iTunes, “We Are Here” and “Melody for Mark,” a tribute to her late brother, who died from cancer.

She embraces tikkun olam, a concept in Judaism. “It means ‘heal the world.’ Sometimes that doesn’t have a price tag on it. I donate my time to hopefully make people feel better than when they arrived,” she said.

Gilbert sometimes has patients – and staff – singing along with her. She recalls one especially joyful moment being accompanied to the upbeat “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” from the “Toy Story” movies.

She’s been volunteering at the hospital for the past three years, always looking forward to her visits and an opportunity to promote healing.

“I’m not a music therapist,” she said, “I’m a professional musician but I feel music heals us.”

Art Around Town art exhibit

Tranquil landscapes, vibrant abstracts and intricate collages greet visitors to Petaluma Valley Hospital, where ongoing art exhibits contribute to the healing environment.

The long corridors leading from the emergency room and surgical areas on the first floor are lined with paintings, drawings, photographs and multi-media artwork presented by the Petaluma Arts Center, a community gallery and gathering place that offers educational programs and promotes awareness and appreciation of cultural arts.

For patients viewing the artwork from a gurney headed to their rooms upstairs, “It takes you out of that moment,” said Val Richman, the arts center’s executive director. “It’s there at a time where you really need that.”

Hospital visitors have been greeted by the rotating displays for some 20 years, ever since the grassroots Petaluma Arts Council established the Art Around Town program to bring artwork to community venues.

The council was the founding group of the Petaluma Arts Center, which continues the tradition of bringing artwork to the local hospital.

The exhibit changes every four months, with about 80 pieces always on display throughout the hospital.

There are no themes, just an emphasis on artwork “that’s supposed to be healing art,” Richman said. “It’s healing and calming, maybe, for the patients and visitors and the hospital staff.”

The ever-changing artwork includes oils, acrylics, giclee prints (prints made on an ink-jet printer) and an array of other mediums.

By lending their works to the hospital, artists are reaching out to people who may not be able to visit a traditional exhibit at a gallery or studio.

“For the artist, it’s a whole new dimension,” Richman said. “To have this added dimension of healing is wonderful.”

The hospital’s next Art Around Town exhibit opens Dec. 9.

Hospital Auxiliary member Betty McCoy

Along with a tiny guardian angel secured to the lapel of her baby-blue smock, Betty McCoy wears a pin recognizing her 5,500 hours of volunteer service to Petaluma Valley Hospital.

The lifelong Petaluma resident has been serving her local hospital as an auxiliary member for more than 20 years. Spunky and spry at 91, she doesn’t plan to slow down anytime soon.

She’s spotted so frequently in her auxiliary uniform that colleagues “often ask me if I have a room upstairs,” McCoy said.

She volunteers once a week as a patient escort and also delivers mail, flowers and meals. Often, though, she pulls extra shifts subbing for volunteers unable to make their commitment.

With three sons, eight grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren, McCoy’s family knows well about her dedication to her volunteer position.

“They’re all aware I’ve got my duties,” she said.

Fellow auxiliary members recognized McCoy’s unwavering service and positive outlook by selecting her as their Volunteer of the Year for 2006. With so many dedicated volunteers, the honor was both touching and overwhelming for McCoy, a retired office manager.

She loves the camaraderie among the volunteers and is credited with giving the auxiliary the nickname “The Blue Angels.” When members showed up in force to McCoy’s husband’s funeral wearing their blue smocks, she commented that they were like her “blue angels.”

McCoy is proud of the service she and her fellow auxiliary members provide, from running the hospital gift shop and providing funds for equipment and mini-grants for staff to manning the information desk in the lobby, assisting visitors in day surgery, running errands and escorting patients to services or from their rooms upon discharge.

“It’s a position that you accept and appreciate,” McCoy said. “I couldn’t think of a better place to be.”

Aspiring registered nurse Vilma Santos

Vilma Santos was a freshman at Casa Grande High School in Petaluma when she was required to give a few hours of community service. She opted to volunteer with the Junior Volunteer Program at her hometown hospital.

Now 24 and a nursing student about to graduate from San Francisco State University, Santos credits that freshman requirement with shaping her career path.

“We were only supposed to do 10 hours but I liked it and kept on going and have been here ever since,” she said.

Santos progressed from the Junior Volunteer Program to the hospital’s college program for pre-med and pre-nursing students.

The exposure provided Santos with a working knowledge of a hospital and progressively allowed her to gain practical skills that confirmed her desire to become a registered nurse.

The experience was an asset when Santos applied to nursing school and has continued to build empathy and understanding of the complexities of patient care.

The Petaluma resident works weekends as a nursing assistant through a registry and hopes to one day work as an RN alongside the Petaluma Valley Hospital staffers who’ve been so supportive of her aspirations.

“By interacting with the nurses, it kind of clicked that this is what I wanted to do,” she said. “I honestly feel like the experience definitely had a big impact on my career path.”

Fluent in Spanish, Santos takes great pride in the service she’s provided translating for patients and assuring them.

From a young teen helping at the information desk to a nursing student planning her medical career, Santos has gained confidence, knowledge and a determination to help others.

Her volunteerism exposed her to numerous role models, she said, and assured her that she’s embarking on a rewarding career.

“It’s like, wow, I love what I’m doing,” she said.

Donna Forst and her rescue dog, Cabo

He once was abandoned, starving, suffering from a bacterial infection and so neglected his blond coat was thin, dull and scraggly. Yet somehow his spirit was never broken.

“He just trusts the world’s going to be OK,” said Donna Forst of her rescued golden retriever Cabo, a therapy dog certified with Paws for Healing, Inc., an all-volunteer program that provides more than 200 canine-assisted therapy teams in Napa, Solano and Sonoma counties.

The pair visits Petaluma Valley Hospital every week, where Cabo’s gentle manner and unconditional love for people make him – and his handler – especially popular with everyone they encounter.

A former stray discovered 30 pounds underweight and rescued from the streets of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico by Nor Cal Golden Retriever Rescue, Cabo was adopted by Forst after she spotted his photo online and knew they were a match.

A retired marriage, family and child therapist, Forst, 66, dedicated herself to Cabo’s care and rehabilitation. Today, the friendly 5-year-old purebred is thriving and sharing his good fortune in several capacities.

He’s been visiting the local hospital for the past three years, serves as Forst’s certified hearing dog, works as a humane education demonstration dog with Forst at Petaluma schools and is a beloved family pet for Forst and her husband, Don, an administrator with Petaluma Valley Hospital.

“And this is the dog that was thrown away. That’s the thing I can’t get over,” said Donna Forst. “He’s more beautiful inside than out.”

She says Cabo has the ability to transform a day for patients who miss their own pets or who simply can’t resist Cabo’s charms.

“It’s his personality. He’ll wag his tail, he’ll smile, he’ll give a kiss,” Forst said. “His heart is just so generous.”

The pair makes the trip from their Santa Rosa home every Wednesday afternoon, always with great enthusiasm.

“It is a profound gift to do this,” Forst said. “It’s a joy to serve, really.”