- November 28, 2024
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“People come in sometimes and need someone to talk to.”
JUANITA POFFENBARGER, volunteer of the month for Halifax Health
Juanita Poffenbarger, of Ormond Beach, was the recipient of Halifax Health’s Joe Petrock Volunteer of the Month Award for January 2016.
Poffenbarger has been a member of the Halifax Health – Auxiliary for 29 years, contributing over 6,500 hours of service. She currently volunteers two days per week in the Gift Shop performing customer service duties, restocking merchandise and entering sales transactions.
Poffenbarger has worked in the Gift Shop for eight years, and performed other volunteer duties before that, including patient relations and even driving the cart in the parking lot.
“I liked everything I did,” she said.
She enjoys the Gift Shop most, where she is the lead buyer and merchandiser for the shop’s perfume products. Not many people realize, she said, that a large part of the business at the shop is from the hospital’s many employees, who come in on their break.
She gets ideas for perfumes from the employees and also visits department stores. She doesn’t know why she became “the perfume lady.”
“I just decided to try it,” she said. “It’s a challenge.”
She enjoys the interaction with visitors in the gift shop. Sometimes someone might be worried about a friend or loved one in the hospital.
“People come in sometimes and need someone to talk to,” she said. “That’s extremely rewarding. You can be an ear for them.”
