We have amazing volunteers and this morning, we hosted our annual Volunteer Appreciation Celebration at Ceruti’s to honor them. More than 200 volunteers attended and enjoyed a delicious breakfast and entertainment by the Alley Kats.

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We could not do what we do without our volunteers and we think we have some of the best ones around. Here are some statistics about them in 2010.

Support group facilitators, members of the advisory board, and Finance and Friend Development committee members have planned, led, attended and participated in 320 meetings

Volunteers provided 355 trips for our clients to and from treatment centers in the wind, rain and snow.

Our volunteer receptionists come in every week and greet our clients with warm smiles, answering 6 phone lines, and keeping things running during lunch time. They have given 467 hours to us this year.

Volunteers helped us have a presence at 35 different health fairs or educational events.

Our Monday morning volunteers who show up faithfully each week cut bed pads, inspect bed pads, assemble folders, shred papers, and help with mailings. They have donated 534 hours this year.

We had 22 volunteer massage therapists who participated in an advanced training class for working with oncology patients. In July we launched our Caring Touch program and since then have given 301 massages to our clients and their primary caregivers.

Our special events volunteers, who help plan Survivors Day, The Tribute Dinner, Design on Life, Tie 1 On, and Lapper, donated more than 1,200 hours in planning, implementing, and assisting with our events.

Our sewing groups donated 7,185 hours washing, ironing, cutting, pinning, and sewing 6,620 bed pads for us.

All together, our volunteers donated 12,150 hours in 2010!

Our Volunteer Coordinator, Cheryl Dafforn, left our volunteers with this special message.

One of my favorite things to do in my job is to plan this event for you. You hold such a dear place in all of our hearts and we love it when we can all come together and thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

This year we have chosen a coffee cup as your thank-you. Did you know that coffee is a very ancient drink, and that people have been drinking it for over two thousand years? In fact coffee is now one of the most popular drinks in the world, and is almost as valuable as petroleum. Now a coffee bean by itself may not appear to be anything special, but when you add water things change. It becomes a rich, bold, invigorating beverage that some of us hold very dear. It also gives us a boost and keeps us going.

You, as volunteers give us a boost and keep us going.

Wilfred A Peterson once said “Decision is the spark that ignites action. Until a decision is made nothing happens.” Your decision to become a volunteer with Cancer Services allows us to utilize your gifts to lessen and ease the changes our clients face each day.

The reality is…cancer changes people. Our objective, here at Cancer Services, is to make those changes as painless as possible. Without volunteers like you, we could not do that. Your volunteer moments count. Just by volunteering your time you demonstrate what counts. Moments count, people count, count the moments we have together.

Thank-you for making the decision to volunteer. We realize you may not always see the end results of your volunteer efforts, or the impact it has with our clients but please know this… Our cup runneth over with great volunteers, and we are truly blessed by each and every one of you.

Thank you for being “Bold” enough to volunteer, and making our lives “Richer”