Hudson Valley Hospital Center Welcomes Volunteer Chaplains

Cortlandt Manor, NY - (January 20, 2012) – Having someone to listen is sometimes the best medicine.  That’s what volunteer chaplains at Hudson Valley Hospital Center do best.

On Thursday, January 19, Hudson Valley Hospital Center Pastoral Care Office installed seven new volunteers as lay chaplain during a ceremony in the hospital’s Wagner Conference Room.

 The community volunteers visit with patients at Hudson Valley Hospital Center and work to meet their emotional and spiritual needs. The more than 20 lay chaplains in the program work to assist area clergy in helping patients and their families.

The seven new volunteers installed during Thursday’s ceremony were:

• Janet Angelillo of Yorktown. Angelillo is an educator from Yorktown who teaches religious education at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Shrub Oak and has done prison ministry as well.  She has a great interest in the work of prayer and in the religions of the world and feels drawn to hospital ministry.
• John Beck of Cortlandt Manor attends the Church of the Holy Spirit. Retired from careers at IBM and Good Counsel Homes for women, he volunteers at Holy Spirit and St. Patrick’s Yorktown and is involved in the Cursillo and Tres Dias retreat programs.
• Philena Bolden of Montrose attends Peekskill Presbyterian Church and is President of Hudson Valley Friends of Mental Health.  She is a volunteer at Hudson Valley Hospital Center and the Field Library Book Store and local thrift shops.
• Marilyn Bucher has lived in Mohegan Lake for 40 years where she and her husband raised their three children and enjoy many visits from their 8 grandchildren.  Marilyn belongs to the United Methodist Church at Shrub Oak where she volunteers in the Sunday School. Marilyn enjoys volunteer work and hopes to start visiting nursing homes with a service dog in 2012.
• Sister Sheila Kelly is a Sister of the Good Shepherd, whose mission focuses on young women in need.  She continues to serve children and families at Good Shepherd Services in the Bronx and is now living at Mt. St. Francis in Peekskill.  Sister Sheila is looking forward to becoming a chaplain at Hudson Valley Hospital Center.
• Roxanne Robson has lived in Yorktown Heights for 35 years where she and her husband Bruce raised 4 children and now have 4 grandchildren. Her parish is St. Mary's in Mohegan Lake, where she serves as a Eucharistic Minister and ushers with her husband. She is busy with weekly Bible study groups and the Episcopal Cursillo movement.
• Donna Sangi-Vallario of Shrub Oak is a catechist at St Elizabeth Ann Seton Church.  She is Director of Life Guidance at Atria Senior Living, specializing in geriatrics and dementia and will be an asset to ministering to elderly patients.

For more information on the lay chaplain program and how to become a volunteer, call HVHC’s volunteer office at 914-734-3244 or visit www.HVHC.org.