What do you do in the afternoons?
It is the kind of question someone asks without thinking much about it. Martha McMahan was asked it in 1970, shortly after a hospital opened in Blacksburg, Virginia. Her answer was “not a lot.” So she went over to the hospital and offered to help.
She has been going ever since. More than half a century, and counting.
On a Monday in late October, LewisGale Hospital Montgomery surprised her with a celebration marking her 55th year as a volunteer. She told WDBJ it caught her off guard.
“It’s a shock. I didn’t think any of them knew anything about it. But I really appreciate it,” McMahan said.
What Does a Volunteer Do for 55 Years?
Small things, mostly, and that is the point. On Mondays, McMahan wheels patients to their cardiac tests. When they are discharged, she wheels them back out to their cars. When someone walks in and does not know where to go, she shows them.
“That’s where I feel like I’m helping,” she said.
Maybe you have been wheeled through a hospital lobby yourself. If so, you know what a friendly face is worth in that building. Nothing dramatic. Just the parts of a visit that go easier with someone beside you.
Rhonda Whaling, volunteer coordinator at the hospital, said nobody else there has matched that tenure. “Martha is a rarity with the 55 years though, and she really loves it. She loves talking to people when they come in. She’s always smiling,” Whaling said.
Who Taught the Students?
Over five decades, McMahan has helped train generations of younger volunteers, hundreds of them students. “She’s been here for so long that we’ve had volunteers, Tech students, Radford students, high school students… she’s been a big impact on a lot of those students,” Whaling said.
One of those volunteers arrived speaking little English. McMahan helped her with the language, and the two are friends to this day. “She considers her one of her grandchildren,” Whaling said.
Bad weather does not keep McMahan home, either. When it turns ugly, she has the other volunteers bring her in.
Why Does She Keep Going?
McMahan is plain about it. “I feel like I am helping people,” she told WSLS. The work gives her something to do and gets her out of the house, she said. And the people there, from the doctors and nurses to housekeeping, are wonderful.
Here is the part she wants you to hear. The hospital needs more volunteers, and she says so without hedging. “I would love to see us have more volunteers here, and we really, really need them… it’s a great job for a retiree that’s looking for something to do,” McMahan said.
She would be glad to help train the newcomers herself. And she has no plans to stop. She is on the schedule every Monday, ready for whoever comes through the door.
So, what do you do in the afternoons? If the honest answer is “not a lot,” you know what Martha McMahan did with hers. The nearest hospital can tell you whether it could use a pair of hands on Mondays. It only takes one question.
