BANGOR – Hospice of Eastern Maine, a program of Bangor Area Visiting Nurses, has presented Gwen Dewhirst, 63, with its highest honor, the Patricia Jameson Award. The award for volunteer excellence was given in recognition of Dewhirst’s outstanding service to hospice patients and families in 2004.

“I was shocked,” Dewhirst said when she learned she was the award recipient. She is the first Native American to receive the Patricia Jameson Award.

Dewhirst was born on Indian Island and raised by extended family members. After graduating from Old Town High School, she married a military man and went to France for nearly two years. After returning to the United States, she and her family were stationed at bases in Illinois, Maryland and Virginia. She divorced in 1975 and began raising her two boys as a single mother.

Dewhirst worked in a variety of jobs. Because she was “always interested in medical things,” she found her job in Central Supply at Physicians’ Memorial Hospital, LaPlata, Md., the most interesting and rewarding. Her enthusiasm for the job apparently showed in her countenance and behavior because she received the hospital’s Materials Management Worker of the Year Award in 1983.

That attitude carries over into her hospice work.

“What I do is cheer up the patient,” Dewhirst said of her volunteer work. “We become good friends. I care about them. What I get from doing it is happiness.”

Dewhirst sustained a serious back injury in an automobile accident, and was declared disabled and unable to work in 1985. She has known physical pain every day since her accident. She returned to Indian Island in 1990 to help care for her mother.

Dewhirst became a hospice volunteer 11 years ago.

“I have always loved people and enjoy helping them out. I like being able to help make patients happy and have a good death. I also like helping the families any way I can,” she said of her decision to volunteer. She talks to the patients, brings food to share, “like ice cream” or goes walking with them.

Dewhirst gives from her heart, and the hospice patients and families she serves feel it, said agency officials. She helps alleviate fear, loneliness and other burdens, and gives them something to smile about.

Dewhirst said the patients she works with “have nice families and they are very appreciative” of her presence. “I make new friends,” she said.

Dewhirst donated 273 hours of service to hospice in 2004. In addition to hospice volunteer work, she helps at Senior Meals on Indian Island and is a member of the newly formed elder abuse prevention committee on the island. She also is coordinator of Indian Island hospice volunteers

“I have a big heart for people,” she said, “and I show it.”

The Patricia Jameson Award for Hospice Volunteer Excellence was established in honor of a woman who, after four years of serving patients and families as a hospice volunteer, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. After diagnosis, she continued to volunteer with hospice patients until was she no longer able to do so. She then became a recipient of hospice services.