VICTORIA GUILD MARKS ANNIVERSARY:

A get-well card here. A candy bar to cheer up a patient there. Those small purchases can add up for big help at Saint John’s Health System’s gift shop. The shop is run by the hospital’s Victoria Guild which is in its 70th year.

The guild has raised $2.49 million over the years for technology needs as a labor and delivery room, a paging system for nurses and dental equipment for a children’s clinic.

“The guild is very mission-oriented and good stewards of any money it receives. That’s important to me,” said Barbara Ann Riggs, president of the Victoria Guild and longtime volunteer.
Decades ago, she and her now-deceased sister, Wilma, began volunteering for the guild in appreciation of the quality care their parents received while patients at Saint John’s.

“We didn’t have any other family so we worked holidays and weekends, which are hard for some other volunteers to work,” she said.

She continued volunteering while working at Delco from 1978 to 1995.

Now, Riggs has accumulated the most time served of any guild member: 14,460 hours and still going.

Riggs was recently named Auxilian of the Year by the Indiana Hospital Healthcare Auxiliary Association that represents 70 hospitals in the state.

“She’s a very giving individual, very organized and creative. She has been an influence in this community for a long, long time,” said Matilda Barber, who serves on the guild board.

“She is a role model for all of us to emulate,” said Barber. “She’s very helpful to other people, good leader and teaches other people to be good leaders.”

Brenda Craig, a guild member, is also president of the Indiana Hospital Healthcare Auxiliary Association which awarded Riggs the honor.

“If it wasn’t for volunteers, hospitals would be paying for those hours. It could be $16 to $19 for every hour. I don’t think the hospitals could afford it,” Craig said.

“Plus when someone walks into a hospital and they see a neighbor at the front desk or the gift shop, it can put you at ease to know people are around you who care,” she said.
Auxilians, like Riggs, work at gift shops but many man desks at surgery centers, emergency rooms or work on teams transporting patients.

When at the hospital, Riggs has only assisted at the gift shop.
She smiled, “I really wouldn’t be too good, I think, working with patients. It’s a talent.”

The gift shop not only serves the families of patients but hospital employees.

“It’s important to have the gift shop open because the associates have to be here and I feel like it’s a service to have it open and be some place for them to get away for a few minutes,” she said.

Not all of the guild’s revenue comes from the gift shop near the hospital entrance. The Guild also hosts an annual Christmas Corner, a one-day shopping winter wonderland in the hospital’s cafeteria. The event, open to the public, raised more than $38,000 last year.

The Guild started on Feb. 21, 1938, when seven members of the Medical Auxiliary of Madison County met to organize the volunteer group. Named after the first administrator of the hospital, Sister Victoria, the monetary contributions have grown from $900 in 1938 to $80,000 last year.

The approximately 300 Guild members must work one shift a month in the gift shop as well as serve on Guild committees. Of these, 40 individuals are elected by the Board to serve as Victoria Guild Board members.

The Victoria Guild is one of the largest of 70 auxiliary groups in Indiana, said Craig.

Board members lead projects and each member serves a three-year term.

“They’re out there in the community representing Saint John’s and with their hours of service, we would never be able to put that into dollar signs,” said Sister Carmencita Bateman, who supervises volunteer services for the hospital and keeps track of volunteer hours.

In addition to guild members, there are about 150 volunteers at Saint John’s.

Published by the Anderson Herald-Bulletin on July 6, 2008.