The winner of the 2024 Hospice Volunteer of the Year Award is Dave Vowles, We Honor Veterans Program, Patient and Family Support Volunteer, Gardens and Grounds Volunteer, at Cleveland Clinic Hospice!
The Ohio Council for Home Care & Hospice awards program recognizes individuals for their exemplary service and care in the home care and hospice field. Additionally, OCHCH awards special recognition to allies in the legislature that support a patient’s right to receive care in the comfort of their home. Nominations for future awards can be submitted at this link.
The Hospice Volunteer of the Year Award is presented to a volunteer who has exhibited outstanding dedication, service, compassionate care and love to hospice patients and their families. This individual goes out of their way to make the lives of hospice patients a little better, their days brighter and improves their quality of life.
Dave began at Cleveland Clinic Hospice in March of 2016 as a gardens volunteer. Working alongside master gardener, Diane, enhancing the 17 acres of gardens at the Justin T. Rogers Hospice Care Center in Copley Ohio, Dave’s passion and talent for creating beautiful green spaces and flower gardens is a blessing.
Dave purchases seeds and grows flowers in his greenhouse over the winter months for planting at the care center. Dave’s gifts are evident as you walk through the grounds of hospice and witness his labor of love. Patients, families and caregivers are surrounded by the beauty of nature. Letters of appreciation often comment on how beautiful the gardens are and how fortunate we are to have such a facility. Dave made the transformation from gardens volunteer to a patient and family support volunteer, more specifically to the We Honor Veterans program, and I would like to share this story with you.
Going above and beyond the call of duty is woven into the fabric of Dave Vowles spirit. He has a personal commitment to pay homage to the veterans who have selflessly served our country and are now in end-of-life care. Dave, a US Army Vietnam Veteran, was drafted in September,1968. His basic training was at Fort Knox, Kentucky. His advanced training was in the Signal Corps at Fort Gordon, Georgia. He was deployed to Vietnam in June 1969, landing in Bien Hoa where the temperature was 118 degrees. He was assigned to the 25th Infantry Division in Cu Chi. He achieved the rank of Sergeant E5 and was heavily involved in crypto and super-crypto communications. He spent much time in a helicopter delivering equipment to forward sites. He is a proud veteran.
When asked if he would be interested in participating in the We Honor Veterans program, he expressed some reluctance, however after some encouragement by Volunteer Coordinator, Abby Werner, to just observe a ceremony, a spark was lit and he now carries the torch that lights the way of honoring veterans in hospice care. No matter where; no matter how far he is asked to travel, no matter the time of day or evening, Dave goes; he answers the call and makes it happen. He has spent many days traversing the landscape of Northeast Ohio sometimes honoring several veterans in one day. He and his “band of brothers” a few other veterans in the program will meet and carpool to the ceremony whether in a patient’s home, a nursing facility, the local VFW or American Legion or an Intensive Care Unit.
Sometimes the ceremony is a celebration with family and friends and music and food and sometimes the ceremony is somber at the bedside of an actively dying veteran and family and friends are tearful and sorrowful. But I assure you whether it’s joyful or sorrowful, Dave extends dignity, compassion and empathy to the patient and family, making every We Honor Veterans pinning ceremony personal and memorable with those four most important words Thank You and Welcome Home. His wife, Linda, also a Cleveland Clinic hospice volunteer often joins with Dave to offer the veterans blessing. Congratulations Dave on this most deserved award.
Nominated by Christine Hinman, BA, MPA
Manager Volunteer Services, Cleveland Clinic Hospice
