{"id":58833,"date":"2012-04-18T08:00:22","date_gmt":"2012-04-18T12:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=58833"},"modified":"2012-04-19T08:27:52","modified_gmt":"2012-04-19T12:27:52","slug":"hail-to-the-volunteers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2012\/04\/hail-to-the-volunteers\/","title":{"rendered":"Hail to the Volunteers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Joanne<\/a>
Joanne Healy and June Sponzo together have given nearly 50 years and thousands of hours of volunteer service to the UConn Health Center. (Chris Defrancesco\/UConn Health Center Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\ufeffIf you\u2019ve spent any time at the UConn Health Center, chances are you\u2019ve encountered a smiling face in a blue jacket ready to answer a question, help you get to your appointment, deliver medication to a hospital floor, or transport a patient in a wheelchair.<\/p>\n

Those are just some of the tasks Health Center volunteers<\/a> assist with every day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would not be the UConn Health Center without them,\u201d says Carlene Bartolotta, director of patient relations and volunteer services. \u201cThey are truly ambassadors, here to do whatever they can to help make us successful in all of our missions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joanne Healy of Granby is in her fourth decade as a Health Center volunteer.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy children were in school, one of them was a nurse here, and I started with the Cuddler Program,\u201d Healy says. \u201cI enjoy being with people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cuddlers are volunteers who hold premature babies in the neonatal nursery, providing quiet time, stimulation and affection under the supervision and direction of nursing staff. Healy now is at the information desk in the main lobby every Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n

June Sponzo of Avon was recognized this year for 15 years of volunteer service.<\/p>\n

\u201cI took early retirement from Connecticut Mutual Insurance Company, now Mass Mutual, and I wanted to do something interacting with people,\u201d says Sponzo, who normally volunteers on Tuesday afternoons.<\/p>\n

This week is National Volunteer Week, and Bartolotta encourages the community to thank the nearly 400 volunteers who give their time to the Health Center. So does Jan Anne Bernard, the administrative coordinator of volunteer services.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur family of volunteers should be warmly celebrated this week and throughout the entire year for all of their good deeds and outstanding performance,\u201d Bernard says. \u201cThey\u2019re wonderful. They don\u2019t say no to too much. They\u2019re very dedicated.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Follow\u00a0the UConn Health Center<\/a> on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0Twitter<\/a> and\u00a0YouTube<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nearly 400 volunteers give their time to the UConn Health Center, which is celebrating them during National Volunteer Week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":58834,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[57,2010],"class_list":["post-58833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uconn-health","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-28 08:35:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58833"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58837,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58833\/revisions\/58837"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/58834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58833"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=58833"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=58833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}