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Karen Terry has been a volunteer at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center for 40 years. She has worked as a patient advocate, at the information desk and at various other roles throughout that time.
Terry said her work as a jewelry purchaser at the gift shop has been her favorite for moments like the one she had with a customer who came in with a special request.
“She had a pair of earrings that her husband had given her,” Terry said. “He came in as a patient in a wheelchair and picked up a pair of earrings for her. She lost one of them, and he passed away, and she felt so horrible that she wasn’t able to wear them anymore.”
Terry was able to reach out to the original vendor and ask them for a replacement. They sent another pair free of charge. In return, Terry got a letter from the customer.
“She wrote me the letter to thank me, because of the fact that her husband passed away, and it meant a lot to her,” Terry said.
The gift shop at Dartmouth Hitchcock recently celebrated its 60th anniversary. It has three paid positions, but the rest of the staff are volunteers like Terry who make purchases, ring up customers and offer their support to strangers.
Joanne Lenke is a volunteer who purchases toys. She said the gift shop can be a lifeline for patients and medical staff who need to buy a quick present for the holidays.
“A lot of staff are working 12-hour shifts,” Lenke said. “They don’t have an opportunity to go shopping. So, I think the gift shop is like the gem in the tiara of DH.”
Lenke and Terry said that when they make purchases for the stop, they try to make sure the prices fit with most people’s budgets, so there is something special for everyone.
Jewelry and toys are some of the most sought after items in the store, along with sweaters with cats on them.
Since 2000, the gift shop has donated over $5 million back to the medical center – funds that have gone toward scholarships for nurses, purchasing equipment, and offering support services for patients.
The opportunity to pay it forward is one of the parts Lenke said she finds satisfying about her job. She was a nurse, and has spent the past eight years of her retirement volunteering for the gift shop. Still, she often finds herself unable to take her nurse’s cap off.
“There was a man in here one day, and his adult daughter was dying,” Lenke said. “I didn’t know that because we can’t ask, ‘why are you here?’”
Volunteers have to be careful not to violate a patient or loved one’s privacy.
“I just said to him, ‘you look so sad,’” Lenke said. He told her about his daughter.
“I said, ‘can I give you a hug?’ and this man literally collapsed onto me,” Lenke said. “I felt good that hopefully he took comfort from that.”
There are also first time visitors like Cresta King, who is at the medical center all the time because she has stage four cancer. She’s also lost part of her sight and hearing, and recently suffered a heart attack. She came into the gift shop for the first time to buy earrings for her three daughters.
“I have a color deficiency and I can only see the color blue, so actually two of the gifts were blue,” King said. She also picked up a third gift from the Halloween rack.
Brenda Walker, who lives in the area, said she will purposely go out of her way to stop by the gift shop.
Walker was grabbing a pair of socks with a national park theme as a gift, because she wanted a pair where proceeds would go back to the parks.
“They always have something new,” Walker said. “It’s your own fault if you leave out of here dissatisfied.”
