Puma Press

With the holiday season coming up, there will be plenty of talk about giving back to the community. Over winter break, perhaps you have some free time to spare; and if you aren’t sure where to spend it, how about some of these places that are in need of your help.

While volunteering, you are not only giving back, but you are giving hope to a child in need.

Phoenix Children’s Hospital located 1919 E. Thomas Road in Phoenix is in need of volunteers from the community. The process for volunteering is as follows:

Attend a Volunteer Information Session (VIS).
Make a commitment to volunteer at Phoenix Children’s Hospital for a minimum of 100 hours of total service. The hospital requires two-to-four hours each week. Volunteers must be at least 16 years of age.
After attending the VIS, complete the application that you received during the session.
Interview with Volunteer Services staff.
Complete a background screening as a potential applicant.
Attend mandatory hospital orientation.
Complete additional training as required by specific locations.
Complete all Occupational Health requirements including a substance abuse test, tuberculosis skin test and blood draw.
Begin training and volunteering after obtaining a photo ID badge and uniform.

During the application process, you are allowed to request the hospital department where you’d like to perform your community service. If you’d like to volunteer in the playroom or at the front desk for example , you would put that on the application. Once you are put into the specific position, you may receive additional training within the department you have chosen. If you are worried about not being accepted into the volunteer program, no worries . T he hospital currently has over 104 volunteer spots open.

However, if you cannot commit to a two-to-four hour weekly schedule and still want to help out, the hospital does need people who are called community volunteers. If you are one of the community volunteers, your name is put into a database and whenever a special event is planned such as a fundraiser, you will be sent an e mail to let you know that your help is required. If you are a community volunteer, you can offer to help out as often or as little as your schedule allows, and the training is what they call “just in time , ” so the moment you get to the event , you are trained on what needs to be done.

You can sign up to be a volunteer for Phoenix Children’s Hospital at www.phoenixchildrens.com or contact their Volunteer Services office at 602-933-0269.

The Emily Center is located inside Phoenix Children’s Hospital, but it is funded through The Emily Center Charity, and it currently needs volunteers as well.

“The Emily Center is a Family Health Library and is open to the public ,” says Teresa Boeger, director of the Emily Center, Volunteer Services and Animal Assisted Therapy. “It’s the largest pediatric consumer health library in the Southwest.”

The application process is the same as it is for Phoenix Children’s Hospital since it is located in the same building. If you would like to volunteer at The Emily Center, just put on the application form that you would be interested in working there.

The volunteers who work at The Emily Center have several jobs that they perform. One of the jobs is going around to patient rooms with the reading cart and offering the child a book or two to read. The other jobs take place inside The Emily Center where you help check out books, answer the phone, help families use the computers to look up information, help children find educational computer games, and you can be asked to give requested information on certain diseases and illnesses to families who have requested it while they are in the hospital.

The Emily Center has been around since 1990, and it is named after a little girl name Emily Anderson who was diagnosed with a rare form of Leukemia. Sadly, Anderson died just four days before her seventh birthday.

“Frustrated by the lack of easy to understand information about Emily’s illness, her parents founded The Emily Center, so that families would always have information that is accurate, easy to understand and free of charge ,” Boeger explains. “The Emily Center is completely funded by the proceeds from special events and donations from individuals, foundations and corporations.”

The last place on the list to volunteer is at the Make- A- Wish Foundation. They have chapters all over the United States, and the founding chapter is right here in Arizona. Make- A- Wish is a non profit organization that grants wishes to children with life-threatening medical conditions. It is the largest wish granting organization in the world and has been around since April 29 , 1980 when they granted their first wish. They are coming very close to granting their 4,000th wish in just Arizona alone. World wide, though, they have granted close to 250,000 wishes; a wish is being granted every 40 minutes!

So how do you get involved in Make- A- Wish? Well there are a few different things you can do. One of the jobs is being a Wish Granter — you get to help in the process of talking to the children about what they want their wishes to be. As a Wish Granter you and your team work to help set up the wish to make it come true. Contacting various vendors (depending on the wish) to see if they would like to donate their services to the wish. You must be 21 or older to do this.

If you don’t have the time to be a Wish Granter, you can be an Airport Greeter, meaning you are the first person children see when they and their families step off the airplane. You help them collect baggage and take them to their destination . Typically, this lasts about two- to-four hours, and if you are an early riser, you would be better suited for this job.

If you prefer a quieter job, there are openings to be an office assistant, in the general fundraising and wish department. You will help sort and send out the mail, answer telephones and thank you notes, perform data entry and other office duties.

There are other jobs at Make- A- Wish that need to be filled such as Event Volunteer, Wish Ambassador and Wish Kid Welcome Crew. If you find that you don’t have the time to commit to being a designated volunteer, you can still help out by donating your services.

Baking a cake, hosting a send-off party or even donating a meal to a wish family makes a huge impact as well.

You can find out more information at www.wishaz.org or contact Arin Lopez at ADLopez@wishaz.org for a volunteer application.