Educational and eye-opening encounters during  hospital  volunteering stint

"It has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life," says Richard Allen.

I have been a volunteer at Beit Shalom for shortly over three weeks. It has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. I have come to truly care about the people for whom I am working and have come to love them as individuals. So rarely do I come into contact with anybody as old as the people with whom I work. Like many people my age, aging and death are topics upon which I would rather just not dwell. Everyone is afraid of death, and when it is not staring you in the face, you can avoid it. I have had the privilege in the past three weeks to be around smart, funny, sweet, dignified people, people who differ from me only in that they have an extra seventy-five years. Bonding with my new friends has made me look at the entire process of life differently.

Not only have I benefited from their age, but from the fact that they are elderly Jewish people, which means that some are Shoah (Holocaust) survivors, and even those who left Europe before are in a very real way founders of a country. I have met people who were teachers and doctors and school district superintendents when this region still went by the name Palestine. I have met people who actually served in the military during the War of Independence. As an American, this is a unique experience, in that my family, and most of the Jewish people I know, went to America in the nineteenth century. It has been an honor to live and work among people who quite literally contributed to the making of both Jewish and world history.

However, it is not only for personal reasons that I  believe this to be an invaluable experience. Quite apart from anything that I have gained, I find the volunteers to be an essential part of the workings of Beit Shalom. Though Beit Shalom has a loving and devoted staff, they are often so busy with all of the things that must be done that they are not always able to give the personal attention that their charges need and want. When a staff member is busy measuring medicine, changing beds, getting people dressed, etc., there is not always the time to just stop, stroke a patient's hand, ask them what they've done today, ask about their lives, share a joke with them and all the other things that humans need to feel connected to the world and other people. The volunteers are able to fill this need.

In short, the time I have spent at Beit Shalom has affected me tremendously, and I would hate to think that it, or any other hospital volunteering program will not be available to others in the future.

Sincerely,

Richard Allen