VOLUNTEERS SAVE TIME AND MONEY

Dressed in a pink smock, Irene Eaker looks at a small boy's choice of candy bars and gum, types a few numbers in the register and accepts his handful of change with a smile. This is her world, an atmosphere of foil balloons, stuffed animals and flower arrangements.

"I come here for all the attention I get and for all the smiling faces," Eaker, 89, says modestly as she fiddles to untwist a gold chain that hung on the jewelry carousel to her left.

A dozen or so pins adorn her lapel, but Eaker is especially proud of two in particular, one of a small golden angel with the word "Volunteer" and another engraved "29,000 hours."

Eaker has been a volunteer in the gift shop and at the information desk at St. Francis Medical Center since its new facility opened in October 1976. Since then, she has accumulated more than 30,000 hours, the most of any volunteer at the hospital.

"We can always depend on Irene," said Pat Miller, director of volunteer services.

A winter storm can't keep her away. Even when others younger than her stay at home, she calls a cab so she can take her place behind the glass counter at the gift shop.

"I have the best job in the world," Miller said. "When you have people like Irene coming in here to work straight from the heart, those are the best people to work with."

Eaker is one of more than 750 people 14 and older who donate their time at St. Francis or Southeast Missouri Hospital.

Volunteers run the gift and beauty shops, answer questions at the information desks, assist families in waiting rooms, copy hospital records on microfilm and perform countless other jobs. Such necessary tasks save the two hospitals more than 100,000 hours in labor and almost $493,000 annually in salaries and benefits.

Administrators compute the savings using hourly wages of $4.75 at St. Francis and $5 at Southeast. These wages do not reflect an accurate savings since specialty areas such as microfilm copying would require an employee working for more than minimum wage, Miller said.

Volunteerism has come a long way since Charlotte Sargent, director of volunteer services at Southeast, started out. Now, all volunteers go through an orientation of competency tests and safety and confidentiality training.

Patients are comforted by the genuine concern volunteers offer. "They know they are here because they care and not because they have to be," Miller said.

The additional helping hand aids in the healing process.

"They appreciate seeing someone not in white that can provide that extra attention and friendly `Hello,'" Sargent said.

The patient's health isn't the only health improved. Holly Atkinson, M.D., has pointed out that there are health benefits for volunteers, especially for heart patients.

Volunteering causes a physiological response similar to the physical opiates from the brain that increase the production of neuropeptides. This creates a state of well-being and increases immunity levels.

Research also supports that the life expectancy of those who volunteer regularly dramatically increases.

Junior volunteers or candy stripers also have something to gain from volunteering.

"The experience offers good training and background in the medical field," Miller said. "It can give them an idea of what they want to do for a vocation, Miller said.

But the main payoff is the "warm fuzzies" people feel inside when they act selflessly.

"Any volunteer will tell you they get more out of it than anyone," Sargent said.

Wenona Harrison can attest to this. Harrison started volunteering at Southeast in 1985 after she retired from teaching. She grows and arranges many of the flowers she sells in the gift shop where she works.

"When I retired, I didn't know what I was going to do with myself," she said. "Volunteering gives you a purpose for getting up and going each day."