Women’s College Hospital volunteer talks about the value of volunteering and her work in the hospital’s archives.
Audio Credit: The Miss Margaret Robins Archives of Women’s College Hospital.
From an early age, this volunteer learned the importance of volunteerism from her mother and grandmother. She and her family dedicated much of their time to helping out at the local church in their small community. She is a graduate of the Women’s College Hospital School of Nursing and a retired library technician. For the last ten years, she has been putting her skills to great use by volunteering in the hospital’s archives.
Interviewer: And why is volunteering important to you?
Volunteer: Well, I think partly a lot of this work that volunteers do would not otherwise be done. This is not a paid position. I remember when I was talking about volunteering while I was still working, I was in a unionized environment, and, uh, the union rep said “Now, is this likely to be paid work?” and I said “No, it wouldn’t be done otherwise.” The other thing I think it, it’s valuable that way. It’s something that you can contribute to wherever you happen to be volunteering. And it’s interesting, like, I do not volunteer where I don’t have the skills and where I would not really be interested in, in working. It’s very fulfilling that way. It’s, it’s not exactly a selfish way of looking at things, but I do enjoy doing things like this. And I enjoy the intellectual stimulation. I also enjoy where I’m working in the Archives. The fact that I can be working on my own, rather than interacting with a lot of people, I enjoy interacting with one person, or maybe two at a time. And so this is a perfect situation for me.