Community Volunteers and Hands On Greater Portland are making a difference
Our new Community Volunteer program is off the ground and on to a great start. We’ve partnered with Hands On Greater Portland and have already engaged a number of wonderful volunteers through them. In fact, most of our regular volunteers have come to us through Hands On!
The process is simple. At the Hands On Greater Portland website, prospective volunteers can find the Project Access NOW opportunities and email to request more information. Volunteers then receive an email with our contact information and an invitation to get in touch with us. Next, they meet with us to discuss available opportunities, ask any questions they might have about our program, and fill out a simple Project Access NOW Volunteer Application. Then, it’s all a matter of selecting the right fit and scheduling times that fit into their lives.
The collaboration has been satisfactory for Hands On Greater Portland as well. Said Andy Nelson, Executive Director of Hands On Greater Portland: “Hands On connects volunteers with organizations that provide meaningful volunteer opportunities. Project Access NOW is an organization that excels in doing that. They understand volunteering. We’re delighted to partner with Project Access NOW.”
A handful of volunteers come in every single week. They help with the Pharmacy Bridge program, facilitating medication application processes with individual pharmaceutical firms and entering patient information into the database. They conduct patient entry and exit surveys. They help schedule patient appointments for care coordinators. An off-site volunteer is assisting our OHSU care liaison with guiding patients through their system. A volunteer is starting to look into collecting a variety of durable medical orthopedic equipment and redistributing it to patients. A volunteer is developing and implementing a system to monitor the good standing of our more than 2,100 volunteer medical providers with their respective medical boards.
A great example of a volunteer-initiated project is Dr. John Jendrzejewski and his wife Judy, both retired, who are going to be monitoring patients through the entire Project Access engagement continuum. They’ll interview selected patients and their assigned providers to get a story of how our patients go through the program, track all of their services and collect both patient and provider satisfaction and outcome data.
Thank you Hands On Greater Portland and our wonderful volunteers: Karla, Vicki, Carol, Judy, Mariah, Molly, Randi, Kathi, Josh, Sara, Wayne, Sandra, Janet, Judy J., Lauren, and Dr. Jendrzejewski.
