VOLUNTEER WITH US
You can give them some. St. Marie’s Hospice trains volunteers across the Detroit tri-county area to support patients and families in eleven distinct ways — from sitting at a bedside to sewing a memory bear after a loved one passes.
Two hours a week became the most important hours of my week.
Hospice Volunteer
What Hospice Volunteering Actually Involves
Most people picture hospice volunteering as something heavy. Sad. Hard to walk into without coming home wrecked. In practice it usually isn't that — and the volunteers themselves are often the most surprised by that.
Most of the work is quiet. Sitting with a patient who wants to talk about their grandkids. Reading aloud to someone whose own eyes can't track the page anymore. Holding a hand for an hour so a daughter can step out and take a phone call without guilt. The patients remember it. The families remember it years later. The volunteers, almost without exception, end up describing it as one of the more meaningful uses of their time they've ever found. It isn't medical work. You don't need a clinical background. What we ask for is presence — the kind of unhurried attention that's short in everyday life, and that patients in their final months tend to want more than almost anything else.
Hospice Volunteer Training at St. Marie's
Federal hospice regulations require formal volunteer training, and as a Medicare-certified and CHAP-accredited provider, we take that requirement seriously rather than treating it as a box to check. Training is led by hospice professionals — nurses, social workers, chaplains, and experienced volunteers who've been doing this long enough to know what trips up newer ones in the first few months.
Orientation runs either in person or through our interactive online format, whichever fits your schedule. After that, volunteers get continuing education, regular check-ins with the coordinator, and a debrief option after any visit that hits hard. We treat training less as a one-time hurdle and more as a way to keep volunteers steady over time. Hospice programs that don't take that seriously tend to lose volunteers within a year. We'd rather invest the time and keep ours.
Not everyone is suited to bedside work, and not everyone wants office work. The program is built so volunteers can contribute through the strength they already have.
The role most volunteers start with. Companionship at the bedside — conversation, reading aloud, sitting in silence, or staying with the patient so the primary caregiver can take an hour for themselves. It sounds simple. It tends to be the work families talk about most after their loved one is gone.
Behind-the-scenes office work — phones, mailings, data entry, event preparation. For volunteers who want to contribute without direct patient contact, or who simply prefer the steady predictability of office work to the emotional variability of visits.
Carries small moments of warmth into a room — friendly visits, simple activities, the occasional craft, light conversation. For volunteers who naturally know how to bring brightness without forcing it on someone who's not in the mood. The difference matters.
Brings a trained, certified therapy pet into patients' homes. What happens next surprises families more often than any other volunteer role. A patient who's barely spoken in days will sometimes brighten the moment a calm dog settles against their leg. It's the kind of moment families will mention months later.
Plays an instrument or sings for patients at home. This isn't clinical music therapy, which is a separate credentialed service. It's musical companionship — and familiar songs from a patient's earlier life often reach people whose words and memories no longer arrive on time. Particularly in dementia, music gets through when nothing else does.
Offers non-clinical spiritual companionship to patients whose tradition or preferences sit outside what the chaplain typically provides. Listening, quiet prayer if invited, sitting with someone who wants spiritual company but not a formal pastoral visit. Works alongside our chaplains and spiritual care team.
One of the most profound roles in hospice. Sits with patients in their final hours who don't have family present, so that no one dies alone. It asks for emotional steadiness, reverence, and someone who can be in a room without needing to fix anything that's happening there.
Helps patients create lasting records — memory books, recorded interviews, letters to children and grandchildren they may not get to see grow up. The kind of project patients often want to do but don't have the energy to start alone. The finished work becomes something families return to for years.
A veteran who visits veteran patients. We participate in formal pinning ceremonies for veterans approaching the end of life — small, formal recognitions of service that families remember long afterward. Veteran-to-veteran companionship has a particular weight to it. The room recognizes it.
A specialty role for volunteers who sew. Creates a teddy bear from a deceased patient's clothing — a flannel shirt, a favorite sweater, a familiar fabric — as a keepsake for the family. In a grieving household, the bear is often the most-held object in the room for months afterward.
Supports families after the patient passes — phone check-ins, sympathy cards, occasional attendance at grief support gatherings. Continues the care relationship through the first year of grief, as part of our ongoing bereavement support.
There’s no fixed personality type required, and our volunteers come from every background you’d expect and a few you wouldn’t — retired teachers, college students, accountants, nurses, former clergy, people who simply had time on their hands and wanted it to land somewhere meaningful. What they share is harder to put on a checklist. The ability to sit still in a room. A willingness to listen without rushing toward a response. Comfort with silence. The patience to let a conversation wander, including into nothing.
You don’t have to have lost someone close to you to do this work well, though many of our volunteers have — including some who first knew St. Marie’s as a family member of a patient and came back to give some of it forward. What matters more is whether you can show up consistently, follow the training, and trust the process when a visit doesn’t go the way you expected. That last part takes longer to learn than the rest. The coordinator will help.
"I'm afraid I'll be too sad to handle it." In practice, most volunteers describe the work the other way around. Yes, it's emotional. Yes, patients you've grown close to will pass, sometimes ones you genuinely loved being with. But the steady, unsensational presence we ask volunteers to bring is also what protects them. Training, debrief options, and the coordinator's ongoing support are built specifically to keep volunteers grounded — not depleted, not numbed.
"I don't have any medical training." You don't need it. Most of our roles are entirely non-clinical. Companionship, music, sewing, listening, errands, paperwork — none of it requires a medical background. When clinical care is needed, our nurses handle it. Your role is presence, not procedures.
READY TO VOLUNTEER?
The first step is a short conversation with our volunteer coordinator. We’ll talk through your interests, your availability, and which of the eleven roles is likely to suit you best — sometimes the answer surprises people.