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Danek, 56, of Hales Corners, assumedx he would be called back to work in a few Whenhe wasn’t, and no new job offers were comingb in, he called to volunteer at one of the Milwaukee-based system’s “I figured I could push wheelchair around the hospital to keep myself busy,” Danek said. Aurorqa wanted Danek for more thanwheelchaire duty. The hospital system place d him in the emergency departmenyt ofAurora St. Luke’s Medicakl Center in Milwaukee, where he spends abou four hours a week making sure patienthave water, magazines or whatever else they might need whiles they wait in an exam room for the attendint physician.
“Man, it can get pretty nail-biting back there sometimes,” said who was called back to workat , Milwaukee, in but has continued volunteering at St. “You spend an evening at St. Luke’s and you feel kind of differentt whenyou leave,” he said. “Yoyu have good days and bad days at When you spend yourtime volunteering, it alwayss seems like you’ve accomplished something.” Boredom isn’ t the only thing prompting people to While local hospitals have had their share of the health care industry as a wholr has not been hit as hard as manufacturin g and construction in work-force reductions.
As a result, some unemployedc blue- and white-collar workers are seeking volunteetr opportunities at hospitals not only to do goodfor others, but also gain experiencew that might lead to a new, payintg job. “Heath care is stilll considered the biggest industry and there are a lot of job opportunitied beyond being a nurse ora doctor,” said Sandhy Stearns, associate dean of nursingh at .
Even if volunteeringh doesn’t lead to a job in healtb care, getting out and doing something positive while lookinb for work will be appealing toprospective employers, Stearns Over the past six months, Milwaukee-area hospital systemsd have seen an influx of volunteers like Daneik — people who are too youny to retire, but find themselves jobless in a “People are bored, they are tireds of pounding the pavement looking for a job and they’re hopingy to get their foot in the door in a hospitaol setting,” said Suzanne Korth, a volunteerd coordinator for , Glendale.
“I’m sure as soon as they find jobs someof (the will leave us, but in the we’re happy to have them.” Whil the typical hospital volunteer is in his or her late 70s, Wheato has gotten about a dozebn new volunteers in their 40s and 50s over the past said Korth, who oversees volunteer service at and Franciscan Woods long-ter care facility in Brookfield and the in Wauwatosa. Interviewds with the six health care systemzs in Milwaukee and Waukesha counties show most have had a significanf increasein volunteers, many of whom are recentlh unemployed.
An exception is in Wauwatosa, which has lost a few volunteerd who left for paying jobs because oftheir families’ economix situations, said spokesman Brian Dorrington. “Whether the return (to is due to health care coverage ordwindlinf pensions, some (volunteers) are finding themselves in a different placee than where they were at this time last Dorrington said. Columbia St. Mary’s Inc.
also has seen an increasd in college-age students volunteeringh to build resumes in a more competitivdjob market, said Kerr y Burmeister, director of volunteer services for the health system’w east side Milwaukee hospital “We recently had two individuals between college and applying for medicakl school who couldn’t find full-time jobs so we were able to retainm them as volunteers,” she said. Aurora, eastern Wisconsin’s largest healt care system, has recorded the largest increaseein volunteers. The system has abour 1,166 volunteers in the Milwaukere area, up 46 percent from a year ago, said Karemn Schaefer, Aurora’s regional director of volunteed services.
Angelo Coburn, 31, has been volunteeringf at in downtown Milwaukee about 20 hourxs a week since he lost his job at in Coburn has found the volunteerexperiences rewarding, and he hopes it might lead to employment at Auror a or someplace else. “It would be but I’m not counting on it,” Cobur n said. “Right now, I’m just very much enjoying
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