Venerable volunteer

Alicia Robinson

After more than two decades and nearly 10,000 hours of service,

Maudie Whyte hasn’t lost her drive to volunteer.

The Newport Beach resident has been lending her help at Hoag

Memorial Hospital Presbyterian since 1981.

She has done various things at the hospital including spending

time with cancer patients. She even drove a patient home to Orange

after the woman had surgery because the patient had no relatives in

the area and a friend who had come to pick her up had to leave, Whyte

said.

“There was no one else to call,” she said.

Whyte heard about the volunteer opportunity from a friend who was

in charge of the surgery waiting room, but she’s always had a

personal bent toward assisting sick people, she said.

“I should have been a nurse,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to

operate, but I want to help people.”

Most of her time recently has been devoted to the gift shop and

the surgery waiting room, where she gets information from doctors and

nurses to family members of patients who are having operations.

“It’s really sometimes very nerve-racking because there’s a lot of

people and a lot of names, but you feel like you’re doing a good

job,” she said.

In the gift shop, she sells people flowers, hospital gowns, and

toys and baby things. “Maudie is one of our long-term, loyal and

devoted volunteers,” said Sherry Sumner, the hospital’s director of

volunteer services. “She really cares a lot.”

Hoag Hospital Auxiliary has about 700 adult volunteers who help in

a variety of ways, including running the gift shop, which donates the

proceeds -- about $100,000 a year -- to the hospital, Sumner said.

“They’re an integral part of our customer satisfaction and they

provide caring service,” she said.