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For Immediate Release
October 3, 2005
Mercy Celebrates 50 Years with Volunteers
Oklahoma City – Five days a week, 58-year-old
Richard Srenco clambers out of bed at 4 a.m., takes a bus from Mustang
to Mercy, then spends the day delivering flowers and e-mails to
patients. That alone should speak for itself. But add in the fact that
Richard has been physically handicapped since birth, and that says
something altogether different about how committed Mercy volunteers are
to Mercy.
While this month marks 50 years of volunteerism at
Mercy, this year also marks more than a half million dollars Mercy
volunteers have gifted to the community. And although this is the most
ever given in a single year, Mercy volunteers have given more than $3
million in the past five decades, helping Mercy provide Oklahoma’s first
digital mammography unit, as well as neonatal monitors, surgery suites,
and currently, an upcoming community cancer resource center.
On October 15, 1955, Mercy’s volunteer auxiliary
started with 13 charter members. Today, Mercy has more than 200
volunteers.
“Our Mercy volunteers make an amazing impact every
day. They are usually the first people to greet patients in admitting
and the last people to wish them well when they are discharged,” said
Pat Scheer, Mercy volunteer manager. “Without them, we couldn’t climb
the mountains we do every day.”
Besides greeting patients and directing patients to
different areas, volunteers regularly make deliveries, wheelchair
patients at discharge and take on a multitude of tasks. But without a
doubt, the highlight for all volunteers is dealing directly with
patients.
 “I’ve
gotten back way more than I’ve ever given,” said Marian Tiehen, 85, who
began volunteering in the Mercy Gift Shop 23 years ago and still puts in
two days a week. “Any time you do for another, you get twice as much
back as you give. That’s true in all of life.”
When Tiehen’s grandson was born at Mercy on January
17, 1980, he weighed 2 pounds, 2 ounces. With many days in Mercy’s
Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, the experience made an indelible mark on
the family.
“The nurses were so attentive,” said Tiehen, whose
grandson is now 25. “They watched over my grandson like mother hens. And
when my husband and I moved to Oklahoma later that year, we had our
house built near Mercy so we could be close by and volunteer.”
For many Mercy volunteers, the stories are varied
but similar in strain — they want to give something back to the people
who compassionately cared for them and their families.
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