Among the longest‑serving hospice volunteers in the nation, Charlotte Kenney, Jan Watt and Lil Venner have each devoted more than 45 years to UVM Health – Home Health & Hospice because, they say, helping patients and their families make the most of the time they have left of this earth is a privilege, rooted in grace and connection.

The notion that hospice work is defined by sorrow, is rejected by all three dedicated volunteers.  “What I’m doing is enabling this person to live fully until the very last second,” says Kenney. “So, to me, that is not sad.”

Venner adds, “You see the world differently when you’re looking through the eyes of somebody who may be seeing this particular thing for the last time.”  She remembers sitting with a woman, watching sunlight transform a pine tree, a cardinal landing on a branch. “These little things become a teaching lesson,” she says. “To look for something like that every day to brighten your life.”

Home Health & Hospice’s Hospice and Palliative Program Director Annie Meredith-Mitchell sees what sustains volunteers across decades. “What really hits home for me is this concept of our volunteers being in the most present moment,” she says. “Everything else falls away, and you’re just completely committed to the human being you’re with.”

Watt calls it “pure giving.” When volunteers sit with a patient or support a family, she says, “they know they don’t ever have to repay you. It’s a gift.”

Hospice Pioneers

Founded by Dame Cicely Saunders in 1960s London, the hospice care movement made its way to the United States a decade later. In 1983, Medicare created the hospice benefit, giving people with terminal illness access to care focused on comfort, dignity and quality of life.

All three Home Health & Hospice volunteers were part of a grassroots effort to bring hospice to Vermont. Kenney, then in her late 20s, attended one of the first local training sessions. “It was the most amazing educational experience of my life to this day,” she said. Venner was in that same training group and Watt attended the next a few months later. None of them realized they were at the forefront of a movement.

While each woman became involved with hospice for different reasons, there was a common driving force. They just knew they wanted to help.

Venner’s initial motivation was practical: preparing for the inevitable losses as her parents aged. After training, she tried volunteering. Her first patient died before they could meet, so she supported his grieving wife — making sandwiches, listening and learning that “people grieve differently.” She’s been volunteering ever since.

Kenney explained that after the training, she knew she’d do “pretty much anything” to help — bedside presence, light housework, preparing meals. She still volunteers Wednesday mornings at McClure Miller Respite House, Vermont’s only Medicare-certified residential hospice. Providing round-the-clock, end-of-life care in a home-like setting, it is operated by Home Health & Hospice.

As a cytotechnologist at University of Vermont Health – UVM Medical Center, Watt studied cells to determine if they were malignant and wanted to better understand how patients and their families deal with the news of a terminal illness. “I often was at the very beginning of when somebody finds out they have a progressive disease,” she explains. She wanted to understand how families cope. She later trained as an interfaith chaplain and worked as a hospice chaplain for 10 years, while continuing to volunteer.

A Connection You Can’t Explain

With over 135 collective years of volunteering, these women say they have learned that meaningful moments arise from simply being there. There was the fastidious woman who asked Venner to dust her chandelier — an activity that took most of a morning — “but it made her day better.”  Venner recalls the man who had grown apples and longed to see the trees bloom one last time. She got permission and drove him to the orchard.

Kenney is now in her late 70s, Venner and Watt in their late 80s. All three continue to serve as their health allows. Asked what sustains them, they struggle for words. “I know it’s in my heart, but it’s difficult to put into words,” Watt says. “It’s a connection you can’t really explain.”

For anyone considering hospice volunteering, these three women have a message: Don’t let fear hold you back. “It’s not sad,” Kenney emphasizes. “It brings joy.”

Home Health & Hospice welcomes volunteers of all ages, from their 20s to past 100. Interested in learning more about hospice volunteer opportunities? Email the Home Health & Hospice Volunteer Office at voloff@uvmhomehealth.org.