Stress balls, screen wipes, and word searches provide the icebreakers for volunteers to engage with patients.
By Daphne Sashin
Comfort Cart volunteers Patti Kroculick (L) and Donna Trumbore (R) with visiting family member Rudy Win, who holds the origami crane he made for them
On a Tuesday afternoon in February, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) volunteers Donna Trumbore and Patti Kroculick walk down the Pavilion’s 9th and 10th floors with the Comfort Cart, offering free gift items for patients and family members.
They knock on patients’ doors, introduce themselves, and, like friendly flight attendants, describe the inventory on the black wheeled cart. How about a deck of cards? Feel like coloring? They have binders filled with word searches and adult coloring pages; stress balls and screen wipes; and a box of origami paper, along with instructions for how to make a folded paper tree or a star. Trumbore has also brought bookmarks and paintings made by her 8-year-old granddaughter.
As they grab items off the cart, Trumbore and Kroculick chat up patients about everything from the Super Bowl to the offerings at the local museums. They express sincere interest in patients’ lives but never ask about the health issues that brought them to the hospital.
A Trojan Horse
The cart, which has been in operation at the Pavilion since July, is a Trojan horse: The freebies give volunteers a way in to provide some human interaction for patients who might be in the hospital for a week or more, said David Cribb, HUP’s director of Programs and Services, including the hospital’s volunteer programs.
“We know staff are busy. As much as they would like to spend time talking to their patients, they also have other patients to attend to. Volunteers do not have that constraint,” Cribb said. “We hope the interaction leads to a few minutes for the patient to feel like a person again.”
On this particular afternoon, Rudy Win, in the hospital visiting his elderly mother, uses the origami paper to make a paper crane – symbolizing honor, good fortune, loyalty, and longevity – and tells the volunteers he hasn’t done origami since he was a kid. On another floor, patient Jennifer Harding accepts a coloring page and shares that she’s a clothing designer. She and the volunteers chit-chat for a few moments, and Harding rates Trumbore’s granddaughter’s art a 10 out of 10.
As the volunteers leave her room, Harding tells them, “I needed this,” confessing that she had been crying earlier about being in the hospital, but now she felt uplifted. That’s the kind of thing the volunteers love to hear.
“I leave here so full of joy. The cart is a wonderful way of allowing patients and families to share as much as they want,” Trumbore said. “People are so grateful.”
Every inpatient unit gets at least one weekly visit from the cart, thanks to a group of 20 regular volunteers that includes retirees like Trumbore and Kroculick as well as undergraduate students. They may stay in a patient’s room a few minutes or a few hours depending on how the patient is feeling and where the conversation is going.
“It’s about getting to know the patient and making them feel welcome,” said HUP Volunteer Coordinator Harrison Quidort.
‘It Makes Me Happy’
Comfort Cart volunteer Yihan Xie also likes to entertain patients with guitar music and card tricks
After volunteering with the Comfort Cart for a while last fall, Penn junior Yihan Xie got Quidort’s permission to add guitar-playing and magic tricks to his offerings. It helps that Xie is a fan of The Beatles, Billy Joel, and other classic music that resonate with the older hospital patients.
“Paying music makes patients happy, and it makes me happy,” said Xie, who spends two to three evenings a week at the hospital. He remembered one great visit with a patient who had just undergone heart surgery and was surrounded by family members. They were big fans of 60s and 70s music, and Xie played all 20 songs on his playlist and many more.
“For some songs, like ‘Puff, The Magic Dragon,’ the patient’s entire family sang along with me,” Xie said. “Before I left, he said, ‘What a Saturday night. Before you came here, I didn’t know what I would do!’”
Help Stock the Comfort Cart
The HUP Comfort Cart is in need of donations! Suggested items include books, magazines, puzzles, games, small notepads, coloring supplies, toiletries (tissues, toothbrushes, toothpaste, hair clips, lip balm, nail files, etc.), and reading glasses. Donations may be dropped off at the HUP Family Caregiver Centers on Ravdin 1 and Pavilion 1 (next to the cafeteria).