Arlene Alvord doesn't much care for hospitals.
So why, then, has she spent more than 2,100 hours at the Logan Regional Hospital? Because, according to health-care officials, her heart is in the right place.Alvord is this year's Utah Association of Healthcare Auxiliaries Hospital Volunteer of the Year.
"I sort of stayed away from hospitals because I'm the kind of person that, I don't like to see blood," she said. "I don't really like to be around a lot of ill people. But it worked out for me."
She said credit should go to the many volunteers and auxiliary board members at Logan Regional Hospital.
But hospital Volunteer Services Director Marilyn Sedgwick saw no reason to perpetuate Alvord's modesty.
"I cannot think of anyone who deserves an award like this more than Arlene," she said. "She not only donates her time when she volunteers, she truly donates her heart and goes out of her way to make a difference in the lives of the patients here."
She started volunteering at the hospital in February 1992.
"Well, I thought about it for quite a few years," she said. "I had some spare time and I just thought that I needed to give something back to the community . . . so I thought volunteering would be the thing to do."
She served in the hospital's surgical care unit, the Women's Center and at the information desk. She also served on the hospital's volunteer auxiliary board - as vice president in 1993 and 1994, as president in 1995 and now as membership chairwoman.
During her term as president, she helped coordinate the donation of 37 quilts to hospitals in Russia and to various local organizations.
"We became almost more than we ever thought possible that year," Sedgwick wrote in the nomination document. "She gave us a vision and a mission, led us to accomplish it and never wanted to be recognized for any of the success."
Sedgwick said Alvord made an effort to discover needs and then fill them.
She said Alvord identified a need for infant burial clothes and shawls for babies who were stillborn. She also helped provide a special grieving room where family members of emergency-room patients could meet in privacy and comfort.
And Alvord helped the volunteers to donate a "kangaroo chair" for nursing mothers and infants being cared for in the newborn intensive care unit.
Sedgwick said Alvord also donated her time to train other volunteers.