The Kindness of Strangers
She had little inkling that NODA would have such profound effects on volunteers – or that so many people would want to be volunteers. Sitting in a restaurant, energetic and loquacious after a 16-hour shift at the hospital, she says – unnecessarily: “I’m like a wind-up doll when it comes to this.” Clarke is 63 now and shows no hint of slowing down. She grins, stops long enough to take a sip of her coffee and then blankets the table with NODA notebooks and guides, activity lists, volunteer journals, news clippings, photographs and cartoons. “It’s all so simple,” she says. “Anyone with a heart can do it.”
No One Dies Alone is not a copyrighted program. A NODA guide explaining how to implement a volunteer companion program for dying patients is available for a nominal printing and postage fee at peacehealth.org/Oregon/NoOneDiesAlone.htm