News Room

Boaz Couple donate time, hearts

By Lionel Green - The Reporter
Published January 23, 2010

Hospice of Marshall County volunteer coordinator Karen Denton calls Mickey Monroe “one of our honey-do volunteers.”

Of course, Mickey has a honey of his own — his wife of 29 years, Linda, who also volunteers for HMC.

Mickey, a retiree who worked many years for Marvin’s and Goldkist, has been volunteering for nine years at HMC, a nonprofit agency based in Albertville that provides home and inpatient care for the terminally ill. Linda, a retired registered nurse who still works part-time, has been volunteering there for three years.

Mickey, who turned 68 on Saturday, is one of about 270 people who volunteer in a variety of ways to help HMC fulfill its mission.

Mickey is an all-purpose volunteer, who does whatever is needed, whether it’s building wheel-chair ramps, painting rooms, sitting with patients or using his handyman skills for maintenance jobs. He has taken a patient fishing, and he helped build a 36-foot-long bulletin board, which extends along one of the hallways at Shepherd’s Cove, HMC’s 10-bed inpatient facility.

“Linda worked at Hospice at one time, and that kind of got me started,” Mickey said.

Linda, 65, enjoys spending time with hospice patients, especially sitting with them to spell family members.

“I’ve been on both sides of the bed,” Linda said, noting her father and mother died at Shepherd’s Cove. “I didn’t become a nurse until I was 42. My first husband died of cancer in 1978. My doctor was in Birmingham. There was no hospice or home health then.”

That’s why Linda knows how lucky Sand Mountain is to have an agency like HMC nearby.

“I’ve fed patients and washed clothes,” she said. “There’s always something to do. There are crafts and office work.”

Linda said she even performed house-sitting duties for a deceased patient while the family attended the funeral.

Mickey enjoys spending time with patients as well. He spent four hours every Thursday for about six months with one Boaz man.

“I thought it was a one-day thing,” he said. “I got acquainted with him, and I started looking forward to going.”

Mickey also took a Guntersville man fishing.

“He’d take a nap occasionally, and I’d sit there and read,” he said.

Mickey said his favorite volunteer activity is building wheel-chair ramps, while Linda likes making gift boxes out of greeting cards for patients.

“These two have big hearts,” Denton said.

Linda said she has witnessed the power of spirituality at Hospice.

“You see a lot of people make real commitments to God and to their families,” she said. “It’s all about living, not dying.”

Denton said volunteers are the heart of hospice care and hopes to add more to her roster Jan. 30. That’s when HMC is holding a volunteer training class at 408 Martling Road in Albertville. Cost is $10 for a training manual and lunch. For information, call Denton at 891-7724.

Hospice cook prepares meals with love

By Lionel Green - The Reporter

Published January 19, 2010

Jo Ann Hawkins is a kind-hearted lady who happens to cook like an angel.

For the past three years, the kitchen supervisor at Hospice of Marshall County has been preparing meals for terminally ill patients at Shepherd’s Cove, a 10-bed in-patient facility in Albertville.

Hawkins and Cindy Garner are the two full-time cooks at the facility.

“The staff absolutely loves Jo Ann, which is evidenced by the fact she was elected employee of the year,” said Sue Couch, who supervises the kitchen staff. “She’s easygoing and never gets flustered. I can always depend on her. She’s a dream to work with. She’s always willing to go that extra mile.”

Hawkins also prepares food for the staff and the families of patients at Shepherd’s Cove. The staff raves about her kitchen’s chicken salad and sweet potato dumplings.

“She makes wonderful desserts, which is evidenced by the fact we’ve all had to go up a size or two in our clothing,” Couch said. “When the patients are discharged or their family members are here, they’re always talking about how good the food is.

“They never ask for something the girls don’t see that they have. If one of these patients wants something, we want them to have it, and they are completely committed to that.”

Hawkins arrived at Shepherd’s Cove after working at a retirement center.

“I really wasn’t hunting a job,” she said. “Don’t ask me what happened, but something told me to come apply for it. They had already had the job fair, and I thought, ‘I won’t get it.’ And they called me. I was just shocked. It was meant to be that I was supposed to be here.”

Hawkins said she enjoys seeing patients eat her food.

“Sometimes when they come here, they hadn’t eat in days — and then they eat,” she said. “If I can feed them for that one time, that’s good.”

Hawkins said she grows attached to the patients.

“We’re not supposed to, but it’s hard not to sometimes,” she said. “We talk to them and find out what they want to eat. We get to know them because we carry the food in. A lot of them’s too sick to eat the stuff we do have. They’ll ask for something different, and we’ll give it to them. Whatever they want.”

Hawkins said occasionally the kitchen will receive a strange request.

“We had one little lady — and I fell in love with this lady — who asked for fried chicken livers,” she said. “We don’t do that very often because nobody hardly eats that, especially if you’re sick. But we did that just for her. She couldn’t believe we did it.

“Then she wanted Spam. She said, ‘Did you ever have Spam?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ She said, ‘I want some Spam.’ So we gave her Spam.”

Of course, terminal illnesses don’t just strike the elderly. Occasionally, a young child is a patient at Shepherd’s Cove.

“That’s the hardest part,” Hawkins said. “We had a little kid in … I think she was 4 or 5 years old. She liked pizza rolls. She had to have six on her plate. No less, no more. She’d eat them for breakfast. That’s all she wanted. She was special.”