In their 20 years as volunteers at Littleton Adventist Hospital, Pat Roen and Jane Daume say their experience on the front lines during the Columbine High School tragedy is the one they most vividly remember.

“Jane and I were at the front desk that day, so we were escorting Columbine parents down to the emergency room,” explained Roen. “These parents came in our door with absolutely no idea about the safety of their children. I’ll never forget that day.”

Roen and Daume are among six charter volunteers – women who have volunteered at the hospital since it opened its doors in 1989. The women were part of a class of 75 volunteers who helped the hospital open its doors for the first time. The six volunteers, who wear special Charter Volunteer badges, include Roen, Daume, Dee Blankenship, Virginia Cryder, Rosemarie Johnson and Livy Murray.

“These charter volunteers are so committed and bring such life to our hospital,” noted Catherine Bartley, manager of volunteer services. They are really the ‘love glue’ that keeps this hospital together.”

When Bartley started as manager of the volunteer services in 2000, there were 85 adult and 10 junior volunteers. Today the facility has 260 adult and 75 junior, or teen, volunteers.

The charter volunteers, who work all over the growing facility, from obstetrics and delivery to medical records, the front desk and the gift shop, say opening the hospital was fun and even a little scary at times. “I remember the seventh floor when there was nothing there,” said Johnson. “It could get really spooky when we’d go up to seven to store medical records.”

While the hospital’s volunteers are primarily older women, men of all ages and young women also serve as volunteers. In fact, Daume’s husband, James Daume, was the first male president of the hospital’s Board of Volunteers. “I am impressed that many younger women want to be involved,” said Roen. “Coloradans are natural volunteers. I really think it is part of our culture here.”

The charter volunteers see their role as supporting the hospital’s patients, staff and the other volunteers.  “We do so much for the volunteers who work here,” Roen said. “Especially for the widows and widowers, they really need to feel like they belong to a group.”

In addition to providing their labor, the hospital’s volunteers, utilizing funds from the hospital store, recently earned $67,500 for patient comfort items like loungers for parents in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and extra warming blankets for newborns. Some 44,670 volunteer hours, valued at nearly $900,000, were contributed by Bartley’s crew in 2008 alone.