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Harold Weeks has been selected Baptist Golden Triangle’s 2015 Auxiliary Volunteer of the Year. Since joining the Auxiliary in 2008, he has volunteered more than 3,800 hours at the hospital.
His primary volunteer duties include working in the hospital’s Critical Care Unit waiting room, chairing his department of volunteers, and helping to train and mentor his group.
The Volunteer of the Year is selected by Auxiliary members each year and recognizes a member who has provided outstanding service to the organization.
“We are very happy to recognize Harold for his dedication to those family members in the CCU waiting room who need special support,” said Baptist Golden Triangle Administrator and CEO Paul Cade. “We are proud of all our volunteers, who are such an important part of our patient care team here at Baptist Golden Triangle.”
Originally from Quincy, Mass., Harold joined the U.S. Air Force and was eventually stationed at Columbus Air Force Base in July 1965. He retired from the Air Force in 1971, and in 1975 he took a job with the security department at Mississippi University for Women, retiring from that position in June 1990.
Harold and his wife, Anna May, were married for more than 57 years before she died in 2007. After his own personal experience with his wife in the Critical Care unit, he joined the hospital’s Auxiliary and asked to work in the Critical Care waiting room.
“It truly takes a special person to work with CCU patients family members who are hurting, and Harold is just that – a very special man,” said Volunteer Coordinator Cathy Johnson. “He has a calm, sweet nature that puts our family members at ease during a difficult time. We are so proud and forever grateful to have Harold as an Auxiliary volunteer. He exemplifies the true meaning of compassion and dedicated service.”
Harold and other hospital Volunteers of the Year will be recognized by the Mississippi Hospital Association in Jackson, Miss.
Baptist Golden Triangle’s Auxiliary is an 80-member group whose members work throughout the hospital every day. In addition, members operate the hospital’s gift shop and host fundraising projects that generate thousands of dollars for the hospital each year.
Last year, the Auxiliary committed to raise $120,000 to help purchase a second new ambulance for the hospital’s ambulance service. To date, the group has raised half that total. Two years ago, the Auxiliary fulfilled a 2011 pledge to donate $110,000 toward the purchase of a new ambulance.