The healing power of - Cook Children's

Volunteering provides future job trainingBY GIVING THEIR TIME, VOLUNTEERS ARE PAVINGA WAY TOWARD THEIR FUTURES“It’s been extremely rewarding, just to see how muchwe’ve been able to help,” said Abasi. “I helped one little girl, apatient who was 10 years old, on my very first day of summervolunteering. She came to me and said, ‘this was the best dayof my life because I had somebody here to hang out with me.’That just made the whole summer worth it for me.”This is Law’s first summer to be a junior volunteer, butthe 15-year-old from Aledo said it will definitely not be herlast. Law and her twin brother, Ben, spent 11 weeks in theNeonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Cook Children’sshortly after their birth.Law wants to become a neonatal nurse and work atCook Children’s. She volunteers as a navigator guide,helping visitors find their way around the medical center, andalso helps patients and their siblings with art projects in thewaiting room of the Neurology and Orthopedics clinics.Law describes herself as a sponge, taking in everythingshe can while at Cook Children’s. She feels like this is agreat starting point for her future career.Michael Abasi and Gillian Law both hope to pursuemedical careers after they graduate high school. But theyare already making a difference in the lives of patients atCook Children’s Medical Center through their work as juniorvolunteers.Michael and Gillian are two of the 344 junior volunteersbetween the ages of 14 and 18 at Cook Children’s. PaigeJordan, junior volunteer/patient care program coordinator,estimates 90 percent of the kids involved in the programwant to go into medicine.The participants are mostly from Tarrant County, but alsoDenton and as far away as Corsicana.Abasi, 17 years old, attends Richland High School andis in his third year as a junior volunteer. Abasi has beentreated at Cook Children’s for Crohn’s disease since he was10 years old and is president of the Cook Children’s YouthAdvisory Council-Patients Advising for Change (YAC-PAC).After graduating from high school, Michael wants to go onto become a gastroenterologist and help children who facechallenges similar to his own. As a junior volunteer, Abasi helpsin the Pharmacy with filing and delivering, and he also playswith the kids waiting for an appointment in the Heart Center.“The job fair in the medical center has been one of myfavorite things so far,” she said. “There was someone therefrom the NICU. I talked to her and she was really nice.She gave me information on a lot of things I didn’t know.Basically, where I should go to college and what I should doin college to prepare for being a nurse.”Teens volunteer in a number of placements throughoutthe medical center, ranging from the clinics, Child Life,clerical and Marketing. Throughout the medical center, 65teens act as navigators. New this year is a group of tenuredjunior volunteers who act in more of a supervisory role asNavigator Guides.Jordan hopes to increase the number of junior volunteersto 400 next year and she expects to continue to see many ofthe teens in the future.“A lot of the seniors will keep volunteering even whenthey go on to college,” Jordan said. “Many of them turn intoyear-round volunteers. It’s very moving to see how motivatedthese kids are. They are the most driven kids I’ve ever met.It is nothing for them to balance and juggle their pre-SATexams, their volunteering, summer courses and everythingelse they have going in their lives. But it doesn’t bother themat all. It doesn’t even faze them. It’s very exciting to havethem here because they are excited to be here.”12 Children’s Promise | The magazine of Cook Children’s