Assisting Veterans in Need

Destination: Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA

This sprawling town in Northwest Arkansas is steeped in military tradition and history and a fitting site for one of the country's largest veterans hospitals.

Veterans hospitals and health-care facilities can always use volunteer power for everything from patient assistance to greeting visitors or just pushing around the library cart. Here at the Veterans Health Care System of the Ozarks, you can pitch in for one day or many or throughout your entire vacation in the Fayetteville/Little Rock area. Some of the volunteer tasks require a driver's license (for driving the shuttle van), and some would be a better fit if you have some medical knowledge (or at least comfort with hospital work), but most require very little training or prior knowledge. Much of the work is in helping former military personnel, many of them seniors, with their care and well-being.

If you can push a cart, you're halfway there for many of the tasks required. You can be the smiling face behind the coffee cart visiting waiting rooms and in-patient and out-patient areas, you could bring the comfort cart around to patient rooms, perhaps the magazine and book cart is more your style, or you could be the ideal crafts cart volunteer, delivering supplies and ideas to make a project. Van drivers transport disabled patients to clinic appointments as needed, and golf cart drivers pick up patients and their families and other visitors in the parking lot and bring them to the medical center.

Escort volunteers push wheelchair-bound patients to appointments, and administrative helpers answer phones, file, and greet patients and visitors. You could assist the pharmacist with pre-packed medications, take vital signs for outpatients, run lab samples and X-rays to the upstairs laboratories, or set up lunch trays to ready them for room delivery. Your enthusiasm and willingness to take on any task makes you a great fit at the medical center.

There are no travel, lodging, or meal arrangements or fee for visiting volunteers. Before you get to Fayetteville, contact the hospital to let them know you've got some time to give and a desire to serve.

Your Next Step: VA Medical Center (tel. 479/443-4301; www.fayettevillear.va.gov). You'll make your own arrangements for your stay in Arkansas, and volunteer for as long as is convenient for you.

Don't Miss: As someone inclined to look for a volunteer vacation, you may already know about Heifer International (www.heifer.org) and its tireless work to end world hunger by donating livestock to villages around the world. You can tour its headquarters -- one of the world's greenest buildings -- in Little Rock, Arkansas. Every element was designed to be environmentally responsible, from recycled materials to innovative recycling projects (everything from rainwater to energy is recycled). It's a true model of working in harmony with the earth. Then head a short distance out of town to the Heifer's ranch, where you can learn more about the mission and meet some of the animals, from water buffalo to bunnies, camels to cows.

Official Tourism Website: www.accessfayetteville.org