The Pat on the Back Award is named to honor Pat Shoemaker and to recognize other individuals who have given extraordinary, but often unsung volunteer time in caring for the community. A “pink lady” volunteer for the Boulder Community Hospital for 28 years, Pat also produced monthly original craft displays for the hospital. Pat was the Boulder Community Hospital Outstanding Volunteer of the Year in 1983 and was honored as the Colorado Auxilian of the year in 1984. She was a homemaker and the mother of two daughters, Linda Shoemaker of Boulder and Judy Miller of Tucson, Arizona.

Potential nominees should embody Pat’s dedication and caring. A $1,000 award will be presented to the honoree to be directed to the nonprofit of his or her choice.

The 2006 Pat on the Back Honoree: Jane Carlson.

In 1980, Jane Carlson, a single mother of five, was working as an English teacher at Boulder High School when a colleague mentioned a volunteer opportunity with HospiceCare of Boulder and Broomfield Counties. She was intrigued, and after learning more information about the organization, Jane began volunteering.

This year, Jane will observe her 26th year of volunteer service in a variety of capacities with Hospice and, as nominator Darla Schueth says, “We couldn’t be more grateful.”

In the early years, Hospice was a fledging organization, without the benefit of nursing assistants. Jane’s first role was in patient care, where she did the unglamorous but essential tasks that needed doing, such as bathing, shampooing and dressing patients, and helping them eat and walk. She supported their caregivers by performing housekeeping tasks, running errands or offering respite and compassion. Without her volunteering these services at that time, Hospice couldn’t have provided them.

“I’ve always been interested in stepping out into the community,” says Jane of her volunteer efforts. “I should step and do something for humanity, even if in a small way.”

As she worked with Hospice’s terminally ill patients, she learned about the powerful grief families experience following a death. Eventually, she shifted her volunteer work from patient care and, after completing Hospice’s bereavement training program, Jane began helping bereft spouses navigate the complex and painful grieving process.

With her exposure to teens through her teaching job and her experience with her own children, Jane next wanted to extend her expertise in grief counseling to a younger group. So, Jane switched her volunteer focus to the organization’s children’s grief and loss support group.

“With her help,” Darla Scheuth writes of Jane, “we’ve been able to give comfort to hundreds of children and their families when they need it most.”

In time, and after touching hundreds of people’s lives, Jane felt ready for another change. Her new job is with the Community Development department, writing acknowledgements for memorial donations. In this role, which she does still, Jane works about four hours a week, notifying families when contributions are made in their loved one’s names, as well as thanking the donors themselves for their gifts.

Here’s what her nominator for this award wants you to know about her: “In all of her positions, she has impressed patients, their family members and our staff with her genuine compassion, wisdom, kindheartedness and thoughtfulness. Her boundless generosity and energy have been an inspiration to all who have worked beside her and a blessing to all who have benefited from those efforts. In all ways, Jane has personified the spirit of volunteering: service to others above self.”