JRMC honors volunteers, names 2025 award recipients at luncheon

JRMC’s volunteer program put a hard number behind its value long before the luncheon started: 71 volunteers donated more than 5,183 hours in 2023, time that helped move patients through the building, support families and lighten non-clinical work for staff. In a hospital that serves Jamestown and Stutsman County every day, those hours are not symbolic. They show up at the front desk, in the surgery center, in rehabilitation, in hospice and in transportation.

Jamestown Regional Medical Center marked National Volunteer Appreciation Week with its annual Volunteer Appreciation Luncheon on April 22 and used the gathering to name its 2025 award recipients. Terry Locke was selected as Volunteer of the Year, an honor voted on by JRMC staff. Judy Hoyt received the Legendary Volunteer of the Year award, also chosen by staff. Joyce Steele was recognized by the JRMC Auxiliary as Auxilian of the Year.

Those awards reflect more than a feel-good tradition. JRMC’s volunteer program says volunteers are part of its vision of becoming “the best rural hospital in the country” for patients, employees and providers, and the roles listed by the hospital show how deeply the work is tied to daily operations. Volunteers support Driven to Care transportation, which provides curb-to-curb rides. They help in the surgery center and the gift shop. They also serve in hospice and other patient-support roles that can make a medical center feel less clinical and more welcoming.

JRMC has said volunteers greet patients and families at the front desk, assist staff in surgery and rehabilitation, provide companionship and support in hospice care, and help with Telecare, Driven to Care, Gift Shoppe operations and the JRMC Auxiliary. For patients who are already navigating an appointment, surgery or a hospice visit, that kind of help can mean one more person available to answer a question or point the way.

The volunteer tradition at JRMC stretches back 88 years. The hospital says its Auxiliary began in 1937, when 47 women organized to serve the hospital, and later raised more than $500,000 for JRMC programs and services. This year’s honors also continued a familiar pattern: JRMC recognized volunteer award winners in 2024, 2025 and 2026, underscoring how the program remains part of the hospital’s operating culture, not an extra.