They volunteer for Christmas
Members of Temple Beth David Jewish Center offer help at hospitals on the holiday.
By LOGAN NEILL, Times Staff Writer
Published December 27, 2007
SPRING HILL - Visitors arriving Christmas morning at Spring Hill Regional Hospital were greeted with warm smiles at the reception desk by Mark and Dale Granoff. Although it was a holiday, the Granoffs, who are Jewish, were more than happy to be manning the post that is usually staffed by regular hospital volunteers.
"Even though we don't celebrate the holiday we know it's important to the people who do," Mark Granoff said. "It's our way of reaching out and showing respect during the holiday."
Indeed, it has been something of an annual tradition with the membership of the Temple Beth David Jewish Center in Spring Hill. About 30 members of the 170-member congregation agree to cover both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day shifts working alongside hospital staff at Spring Hill Regional and Brooksville Regional hospitals.
Dr. Sheldon Alter and his wife, Ruth, began coordinating the annual holiday gesture 12 years ago, shortly after they moved to Spring Hill. Alter, a retired physician who worked at a Catholic hospital in Boston, said he and his fellow Jewish doctors participated in a similar effort for several years.
Finding willing volunteers at the temple has never been a problem, Alter said.
"They know that the hospital would probably understaffed otherwise," Alter said. "Plus, they love doing it. Some have even become regular volunteers at the hospital."
Alter said that the temporary volunteers were required to take safety exams and view videotapes on confidentiality rules before they were allowed to work. The majority of the volunteer positions revolved around patient services, such as filling water pitchers, pushing patients in wheelchairs and, of course, greeting hospital visitors.
However, for volunteers Stan Margulis and Gary Beaman, just being able to offer some comfort to ailing patients more than made the experience worthwhile.
"It's not the place you want to be on Christmas if you don't have to be here," said Margulis. "We try to cheer up the patients that are here and let them know that things are going to be okay."
At one point, Margulis and Beaman were handed two teddy bears by a hospital staffer to give away to any young patients they could find. There were none, so the men offered them to two elderly patients.
Said Beaman, "Neither of them had any family, and I think they were grateful that they weren't being forgotten on Christmas."
Logan Neill can be reached at lneill@sptimes.com or 848-1435.
By the Numbers:
1995 The year that Temple Beth David Jewish Center started the volunteer program.
27 The number of volunteers who participated in this year's program.
4 The number of hours each volunteer serves.