Alice Shirley, a full-time realtor for Real Estate One, has also been a devoted Emergency Room volunteer for more than 20 years.
“I’m one of those people who thinks you can’t just live in a community, you also have to give back to it by helping out,” she said. “I have a care-giving kind of personality and people like that find their niche. In my case, it’s the hospital.”
Every Monday night Alice trains other volunteers to work in Munson’s ER. “We provide all sorts of support for staff, always in a non-medical way. We spend a lot of time with patients and families, and a lot of time cleaning up.”
Volunteering is her passion. “If I make the load of being in the ER just a little lighter, or more personal, or more friendly, then it just buoys me up. When there is a horrendous auto accident, I might sit for four or five hours with a family member. I’m not a grief counselor, but just being there seems to help. When I see older people come in, in my mind’s eye I see them as my mother or my father and I think, ‘How would I want them cared for?’”
“I get so much more back than I give. If I can add the tiniest little bright spot to their experience,it makes me feel better.”
Alice and her husband, Mike, moved to Traverse City 37 years ago. She volunteered on Munson’s pediatrics unit and taught school before stopping to raise their two sons. When she was ready to work outside the home again, she realized how much she’d missed being at the hospital and began volunteering in the ER.
Alice gladly accepted a recent invitation to join the Foundation Board. “The Foundation couldn’t have hit closer to my heart than the current ER campaign. The ER has been my life,” she said. “I’m looking forward to the experience of learning about other facets of Munson that I have never been exposed to. I’m certainly willing to give it a whirl.”
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