If you found out that your best friend had only eight weeks to live, you would probably do everything in your power to make life today better for them.

That is what volunteering at the DeKalb County Hospice Center is all about: making today better for someone who might die tomorrow.

“It’s a matter of helping the patient accomplish what they want to accomplish before they die,” said Mary Evelyn Phillips, who coordinates the volunteer program for DeKalb’s hospice center. “One patient wanted to see the town where they grew up one last time, and his volunteer took him to that town.”

Phillips, who began working for the center in 1982 as a volunteer, was named director of the volunteer program five years ago. Today she is looking for more recruits to join the special program.

“I feel that it is a sacred privilege to be helping these people. You are walking through their world of pain,” said Phillips.

The hospice center now is seeking compassionate people who wish to assist terminally ill persons and their families. Following an extensive training session, volunteers each are assigned a patient depending on the patient’s needs and the volunteer’s schedule.

Individuals can volunteer for direct or indirect service to the hospice families. Indirect service might involve office work within the hospice itself. Direct service means working directly helping the patients and their families.

The Hospice Way Volunteer Orientation will be held every Thursday from 6:30 until 9:30 p.m. at Salem Lutheran Church in Sycamore beginning September 20, and lasting for nine weeks. The orientation course covers topics specifically dealing with death, how to cope with death, and how to help others cope.

“I enjoyed the orientation quite a bit and I am looking forward to being assigned a patient very soon,” said Christina Tait, 19, a sociology major at Northern.

“It’s an enlightening look at death. If you haven’t come to grips with your own mortality, it really slaps you in the face. They aren’t trying to make you dispassionate. They are trying to make you realize that we are all immortal,” Tait said. “I would even recommend it just for the experience of going through the orientation. I often think that Northern should have a class on death education.”

Phillips said, “we welcome students to be volunteers. We have had students volunteer in the past and it has always worked out well. We even have some professors who are volunteers.”

Persons who wish to volunteer should be willing to give up two to three hours a week of their time, sometimes more as a patient grows closer to dying. “It’s a sacrifice. Instead of going to a movie, you come here. But I think most people find out that it’s worth it,” Phillips said.

“You have to learn to take care of yourself before you can begin to take care of others. We are looking for people who can take care of themselves, and are willing to share themselves with terminally ill people and their families,” said Phillips.

For more information or to become a volunteer, call the hospice center at 756-3000.