Health Care Volunteer Award

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of articles profiling winners of the Celebration of Giving awards presented annually by Shawano Area Community Foundation Inc. for outstanding volunteerism. The winners will be honored at a gala April 14.

With priorities firmly in order, Fred Pape tells a waitress that it doesn’t matter whether she brings him orange juice or tomato juice.

“Either one, I don’t care,” he said. “I’ve been married for more than 50 years, so I’m easy to please.”

Juice preference notwithstanding, caring is actually his calling card. In matters of compassion and humanity, no one over the past six years has more steadfastly walked the walk than Pape, winner of the Shawano Area Community Foundation’s Heath Care Volunteer Award.

The number of rounds he has made at Maple Lane Health Care and Birch Hill Care Center since 2009 rival those of attending physicians.

“I’ll always stand outside the door and ask each patient if it’s OK that I come in and visit them,” he said. “I’ll start by telling them that I’m not a minister, and I’m not an insurance salesman. Elderly people are always getting calls from insurance salesmen.

“If they let me come in and visit, we’ll do small talk, or sing songs. If it’s Christmas time, we’ll sing Christmas carols. Music has no boundaries. Everyone can understand it, and everyone remembers certain songs.”

Scattering random kindness to those in the twilight of their earthly residence is an effortless affair, he said, because when you’re volunteering for a worthy cause, it is a reciprocal deal on the great karma scoreboard in the sky.

“All volunteers, in general — whether it’s shoveling somebody’s driveway or donating clothes — we think we are a blessing to those we’re helping,” he said. “And, we are. But those of us doing it, we get a much bigger blessing. When I leave those facilities I know how easily it could be me in one of those beds instead of walking out of there.”

The 78-year-old retired Coca-Cola salesman was called to volunteer life after an epiphany one morning during a church service.

“Hearing the words in a church setting, about feeding the hungry, clothing the poor and visiting the sick, it just got to me,” he said. “It was like, ‘Duh!’ Sometimes we’re so busy raising our families, doing our jobs, building our careers, that we don’t hear God speak to us audibly. But I heard Him there. And I wanted to represent Him, to do his work.”

So, with the support of his wife, Marian, Fred embarked on a personal mission that has given his life added inspiration.

“A nursing care facility is God’s waiting room,” he said. “They’re waiting to be called home. I’ve met with so many people who’ve lost their spouses. They feel like they don’t belong in society anymore. They want to reunite with their spouse. When they finally pass away, I go to their wake, but I won’t be sad. I’ll say, ‘You made it!’ You got your wish!’

“I’m not afraid to die, and I try to inspire those who are dying to not be afraid. There is no greater joy than to hold the hand of a person who’s dying.”

Pape acknowledges that hospitals are not the first choice for a vacation getaway, but that therein lies a beautiful paradox.

“It’s not a pleasant place to be,” he said. “It can be depressing. But when you walk through that door, you get this feeling over you that says that this is where you belong, this is where you belong. Helping people … that’s what we’re on Earth for.”

The Health Care Volunteer Award is sponsored by ThedaCare.

Pape will split his $1,000 award between the Wolf River Lutheran High School fund for a new school and the fundraising effort by VCY America, a Christian broadcasting station in Wittenberg, for a new transmitter.