Happy Birthday to you, and you and you at Deer’s Head

Salisbury Jaycees volunteer Lacey Coleman and Stephen Rini 

play Bingo as part of the March group birthday party held 

at Deer’s Head Hospital Center. Submitted photo 

Giving is a contagion, if a pleasant one. For the Salisbury Jaycees, participating in the March birthday party at Deer’s Head Hospital Center is a particular fulfillment of this disposition to serve. The club is one of 12 organizations that volunteers to put on a birthday party for the Deer’s Head patients. Because birthday parties are fun, and because so many of the patients at the rehabilitation hospital are in a transitory position, it could be easy for their birthday to go unmarked.

While many patients have family who visit, some do not. More important, it’s sort of like the difference between when your family throws you a birthday party and when there’s one given for you at work. The extra recognition is nice.

There are three aspects to holding the monthly event. Activity Therapy Director Diane Zielinski works with Helen Young, director of volunteer services for Deer’s Head to ensure the space and time are made available for the event. And, of course, the volunteer calendar and the groups of people who have committed to volunteering have to do their part. 

Two volunteers in particular, Beverley Thompson, “The Birthday Party Chair” and Bessie Jones, who makes it a point to be at all of the birthday parties, help work with the volunteer groups.

In March, the volunteer group was the Salisbury Jaycees. The Jaycees always have March, it is as much part of their regular calendar as the other events they volunteer for, such as Pork in the Park (which is at the end of April this year). Joel Maher the Jaycees president knew it as part of the culture the Jaycees embraced before he even joined.

“We try to get as many people as we can to go,” he said. “We have more than 50 members, so our ears are always open [for volunteer opportunities].”

What makes the Jaycees a particular example is that the group acts as something of a transitional service organization for young business professionals making their way into a local business community. It is more about establishing an attitude for community service than it is about networking, per se.

“My goal is to have our chapter complete 500 hours of community service this year,” said Lacey Coleman, community development director for the Salisbury Jaycees. “Last year we did 40 events.”

By bringing young business leaders together regularly to participate in the community, the Jaycees are building, they hope, a stronger philanthropic community as well as an economic one. The critical part is that young business people learn that volunteering can be a significant part of their professional lives without coming to dominate it.

The birthday parties are essentially the same each month. It doesn’t take a lot of time, but it has a massive effect on the participants, patients and volunteers alike.

“Its a quick, easy thing for a working person to do,” said Young. The volunteer group commits the afternoon and also funding the party with a $50 sponsorship donation, which covers food, gifts and prizes for all the honorees.

After singing “Happy Birthday” and having a treat the volunteers and patients play a game of Bingo, with each patient pairing up with a volunteer for the game. Play continues until each participating patient has won (the prize is $1). Each patient celebrating a birthday that month, even those who are unable to leave their rooms to attend is given a birthday gift from the volunteers and staff at the end of the party.

The activities department checks with the patients who can speak to see what they would like, for the others, department members come to learn what the patients like or would need.

Young told about one of the patients who is mostly immobile but every year is obviously pleased with the gift of new hair clips she tends to get.

“I think it helps the residents feel a part of everything,” said Coleman, who was among the volunteers at the party.

She talked about one of the residents who has family visiting several times per week and how they, too, were happy to see the volunteers come out because it demonstrates that the patients still are part of the larger community. The birthday party is a monthly reminder of the fact. Maher agreed.

“I feel like they are there 24 hours a day,” said Maher. “They don’t get to see anybody.”

A version of his story originally appeared in the April edition of the Salisbury Star.