Volunteer Services Turns 60

Abe Baily, an Enloe Health volunteer, serves as the intake coordinator at a recent blood drive. Volunteers have been at Enloe for 60 years.

More than any other member of the Enloe Health volunteers, Abe Baily has just about seen it all.

From performing in an amateur musical for the community, to belonging to a men’s fundraising group, all the way to assisting with intake at a COVID-19 vaccination clinic, Baily has plenty of fond memories from his time as an Enloe volunteer. Volunteering has brought the Chico resident immense fulfillment, he said.

“It’s fun,” he added. “I wouldn’t trade my time helping at Enloe for anything. It’s brought a lot of joy to my life and it’s helped a great organization.”

Baily is one of 208 people who make up the Enloe Health volunteers, which celebrates its 60th anniversary. Enloe Health’s first volunteers offered their time and talents to the Enloe community in 1965. Back then, volunteers were part of two organizations: the Enloe Men’s Associates and the N.T. Enloe Memorial Hospital Auxiliary. Today, they are part of Enloe Health Volunteer Services.

Looking Back

For Baily — who has volunteered at Enloe for 47 years — performing in the Enloe Follies community musicals in the 1970s and 1980s was a fun contribution. Alice Starmer, who was Enloe’s first Community Services director and was instrumental in the hospital’s shift to a nonprofit, helped organize the Follies. The musical played to sold-out crowds at Laxson Auditorium, Baily recalled.

“I participated in one performance with Barry Manilow’s ‘Copacabana’ song that had a Latin beat to it,” he recalled. “The Follies were our major fundraiser. I volunteered, and I sang and danced. Alice and the others would speak to a company in New York, which would send a director along with costumes.”

Giving Back

The Men’s Associates and the N.T. Enloe Memorial Hospital Auxiliary for women merged in the 1990s, according to the 2013 Enloe history book “The First Hundred Years — An Appreciation of Enloe Medical Center” and were absorbed by Volunteer Services.

Raising money has been the volunteers’ greatest gift to Enloe over the decades — notching $3.15 million, according to Enloe Health Foundation records. Mary Godinez-York has been the director of Enloe Health Volunteer Services since 2022. She oversees the group’s operations.

She said the volunteers still raise funds — by way of sales proceeds from the Gift Shop — to support Enloe’s objectives. For example, Godinez-York said the group pledged $1 million to the Starmer Cardiovascular Care Center inside Enloe Health Enloe Medical Center in 2019. The group pledged $150,000 toward the Enloe Health Gonzales Comprehensive Cancer Center at the annual Volunteer Appreciation Dinner in April. The pledge honors longtime volunteer Veronica “Ronnie” Campbell — who passed away in 2022 — by naming a meeting room after her.

Campbell began volunteering at Enloe in 2000 and was instrumental in launching the Patient Ambassadors program in 2007. Ambassadors are highly trained volunteers who provide visitation and advocacy to Enloe patients.

Volunteers enjoy what they do, but becoming one isn’t easy, Godinez-York said.

“We have a pretty intense application process,” she explained. “Depending on where they’re going to go, there’s a background check involved and an interview. Sometimes applicants don’t understand what the program is about or the time commitment we require — 50 hours in six months and 3-4 hours per week.”

However, once in the group, participants often find it very enjoyable, she said.

“Our volunteers regularly tell us that they feel like they get so much more out of volunteering than they give,” Godinez-York said. “They love it, and we love them for all that they do.”