Farewell to Charlotte Raymond!
We hate to say goodbye to Charlotte, but at the age of 94 and after almost 40 years of serving Hospice of the Golden Isles (HGI) it’s time for her to be closer to extended family in Pennsylvania.
Today, we surprised her during our Volunteer Appreciation Party with a cake, card, and lots of best wishes for her next adventure. It’s hard to put into words how much we love and appreciate ALL that she’s done for our patients and our staff since 1980. Below is an older blog that gives you some insight into the impact she’s made at our hospice.
If you’d like to serve HGI as one of our treasured volunteers contact our Volunteer Coordinator Trish Burns at patriciaburns@hospiceme.freshwater.test.
We featured Charlotte on our blog last year:
At 93, Charlotte Raymond is showing no signs of slowing down. She says her love for Hospice of the Golden Isles (HGI) is one of the reasons she’s still going strong. “I love Hospice so much. It stimulates my brain. At 93, not much else stimulates my brain,” she says with a laugh. “When I sit and make prayer shawls, it makes me happy to know the joy I’m giving someone else when they get one of them,” says Charlotte.
Charlotte has been making prayer shawls for patients since her earliest days with hospice almost 38 years ago, which is also when also when HGI was founded. “I got the idea for knitting a prayer shawl from a book I got as part of my training with hospice” explains Charlotte. Charlotte estimates that she makes around 200 prayer shawls for Hospice each year. “I sit in front of the TV and knit. I put love and prayer in all of them. I probably spend about 15 hours a week making them. It’s therapeutic for me,” she says.
Charlotte is not only a beloved part of HGI’s history, she also keeps track of our non-profit’s history. Each Tuesday, Charlotte comes to Hospice and places all published materials about Hospice of the Golden Isles into our scrapbooks. She is quite meticulous about making certain that everything is recorded. “This is my passion. This is our history,” says Charlotte.
Each week, after Charlotte has finished her work preserving our history, she can be heard walking down the hallway telling everyone, “I’ll see you all next week, good Lord willing!” To which, we reply “Then, we’ll definitely see you next week Ms. Charlotte.”
If you’d like to donate yarn for Ms. Charlotte’s prayer shawls contact Patty Crosby, VP of Development at pattycrosby@hospiceme.freshwater.test or 912-265-4735. And, if you’d like to become one of our treasured volunteers like Ms. Charlotte contact Trish Burns our Volunteer Coordinator at PatriciaBurns@hospiceme.freshwater.test.
