Volunteering: A Way of Life
Connie Carlton grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. From local service to mission work, the church’s beliefs are strongly rooted in helping one another at an early age. “Volunteering has always been a part of my life,” Carlton noted. ” I enjoy helping people.”
For the past four years, Carlton has served as president of the Pawnee Valley Community Hospital Auxiliary, which, at 113 members, is the largest volunteer organization in the community. As president, she also serves as coordinator for District 6 in Kansas’ Hospital Volunteers of Kansas. Her district encompasses the auxiliaries of Liberal and Ulysses as well as Larned, among 36 such organizations in the state with a membership of 6,515 volunteers.
Carlton came to Larned with her husband Richard when he accepted a position as director of the Tri-County Special Education Cooperative in 1981 through 1993 when he passed.
Connie, who had studied nursing during her two years in college, was a stay at home mom with nine children. “I had a daycare and I did some volunteering,” she said. “But having nine children at home kept me busy for a while,” she said. “They all graduate Larned High School.”
While her kids were in school, Connie served as office manager for Larned High School. She served there 12 years, leaving in 2014.
While she was child-rearing and working at the high school, Carlton was volunteering. She credits Pat Schartz, who herself was an active volunteer before her passing in 2015, with getting her signed up as a hospital volunteer.
“Pat Schartz asked me to join the hospital Auxiliary and I did, and she gave me a job to do,” Carlton recalled. “I continue to do that today.
The opportunity to join other groups came up. Volunteering was a given. This town works together on a lot of things.”
The Auxiliary has grown since Carlton became a member. In addition to staffing the welcome desk at the hospital in two-person, four-hour shifts, members tend to the Auxiliary Gift Shop. While the Auxiliary operates year-round, autumn is always a busy time assisting with lab fairs, fundraisers and programs with the elementary school.
“At the time that I joined, it was just to be a part of it, do whatever needed to be done,” Carlton said. “I worked at the front desk where we greeted everyone that came in and could get where they needed to go. It just kind of went from there. Now, “we have a craft fair in November, and we help with the Lab fair that the hospital does twice a year. We help with the sixth-grade health fair, where the sixth graders come over and learn about the hospital.
“The Gift Shop is still a big thing,” she said. “They’ve always had a gift shop where people could buy things for patients or friends, but it has gotten bigger. It now is a place where people will come to shop for themselves and others.”
“We will be helping with the October health fair, but our big event is the holiday fair on November 16th. We have vendors come in to sell their wares and we have a food court to feed everybody. Everybody pitches in; somebody bakes pies somebody serves, everyone is involved in one way or another. We have a quilt raffle. “It’s a big event,” she said.
As she steps down from her office as president, there will still be things to do with the Auxiliary. Besides that, Carlton volunteers with members of her church group once a month at the volunteer-run state theater in Larned. She’s also a member of Larned Music Club and Larned Garden Club, Beta Sigma Phi, and the local Daughters of the American Revolution chapter.
“I think that I’ve tackled most of the volunteer groups here,” she noted. “Volunteering to me is a way of life; there are the opportunities to do it in organizations that’s sometimes greater than doing it on your own.”
