Our mission is to reduce landfill waste to decrease Healthcare's carbon footprint.

The primary aim of our project is to promote sustainable healthcare. Participants will sort, quality check, fold, and transport, retrieve, package, and ship unused, but clean operating room supplies to our partnered hospitals and clinics via a nonprofit organization, and sterile wrap for recycling. Clean medical equipment designated for single use in our hospitals is diverted from landfills for use in recipient countries. Recycling blue wrap will significantly reduce the landfill waste coming out of our operating rooms, reducing the environmental impact of delivering care, and turning waste into valuable material.

Our volunteers, 16 years and older, will be available for sorting, identifying, and packaging critical medical supplies. Volunteers must work effectively in a team and demonstrate good communication and leadership skills to lead more prominent groups. Attention to detail is essential to ensure sensitive equipment is packed correctly and safely for shipment to communities in need around the world. Volunteers can contribute meaningfully to improving global healthcare inequities and decreasing the carbon footprint of Stanford Children's Hospital.

For more information about this specific volunteer program, please email: Theresa Young tyoung@stanfordchildrens.org.

Department: Creative Arts

Program Goal: Provide storytelling activities for patients and their families in the inpatient care units

Location: Patient Library with circulation throughout the inpatient units.

Schedule: 2-3 hour shifts, Monday - Friday

Qualifications:

• Must have strong people skills (bilingual a plus)


• Willingness to volunteer in an often emotionally sensitive and busy setting


• Must be a self-starter who is also willing to follow instructions


• Ability to handle clerical tasks with careful attention to detail


• An understanding of child development and an enthusiasm for reading and storytelling are essential

Responsibilities

• Visit assigned patients on inpatient units and read to them, age-appropriate books at the bedside


• Interact with patients and their families, providing books and play activities whenever appropriate


• Maintain channels of communication with library staff

Orientation/Training
After completing both general volunteer orientation and the library interview and orientation, library staff will arrange a 2-hour, individualized, hands-on training with a volunteer "partner" already in the program. Periodic in-services are provided at which volunteer contributions are recognized, acknowledged, and changes in policies and procedures are discussed. All volunteers are encouraged to attend. A Library Volunteer Manual is maintained and updated as an easy reference to volunteer policies and procedures.