Philip Raphael

Editor

What do you do when you have spent your entire career caring for people and are approaching retirement?

If you happen to be Katherine (Kitty) Sawycky, you make the transition seamlessly—you simply keep on caring for people.

Sawycky has been a registered nurse since 1966 and is currently serving as president of the Delta Hospital Auxiliary which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year.

“It’s (nursing) something I wanted to do ever since I was a kid,” says the native of Nova Scotia who grew up in Quebec and began her career at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Montreal. “Helping people has given me a great sense of job satisfaction. And when you love what you are doing, you really miss it.”

Now that a workplace injury has sidelined her from nursing and with retirement fast approaching, Sawycky says aligning herself with the auxiliary was a natural extension.

“It was a lapse in my senses when I agreed,” she says, displaying her ready sense of humour.

A Tsawwassen resident for the past 20 years after moving from Calgary, and a member of the auxiliary for eight years, Sawycky says she is constantly awed by the army of volunteers who lend their time to help support the community’s hospital.

Sawycky started out working in the hospital’s gift shop as a purchaser—something she thoroughly enjoyed—and now is head of an organization which she says taps into the very heart of the community.

“This is just an amazing group of people who are so dedicated and caring,” she says, adding the passion for playing a volunteer role in the community is readily apparent when you consider how long some of the auxiliary’s members have remained committed to the cause.

Many members have served more than a decade. And several have been with the auxiliary since it was formed by Lila Massey and a group of others back in 1969.

“That’s just indicative of how much people care about their community and their hospital,” Sawycky says.

And it has a profound effect as the funds it raises go towards a variety of causes in the hospital. But more than the dollars and cents raised is the personal involvement the volunteers show as they lend their smiles and attention to everyone who passes through the doors of Delta Hospital.

That brings a true sense of community to the hospital Sawycky says. And that’s something she hopes will be passed on to future generations as the need for new generations of volunteers is always apparent for an organization like the auxiliary.

“We’re concerned because of the age of some of our volunteers,” Sawycky says. “They are valuable because of the experience and contributions they have made over the years. But it’s time for the younger generation to take up the cause as well.”