After retiring, these volunteers found something more valuable than a paycheck

Retirement is supposed to be an ending.

For Margie Crawford and Corky Bowers, it has become something closer to a calling — measured not in paychecks, but in quiet, human moments inside a hospital gift shop.

At Wellstar Kennestone Medical Center, the two women help gift shop patrons mark life’s extremes: balloons and plush animals for new babies or sympathy cards for families bracing for loss. In between, there are conversations, sometimes joyful, sometimes heavy, often unforgettable.

“Hopefully, all of us volunteers may be able to provide a little help, a little support and a better day,” said Bowers, 77, who works Wednesdays 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., ringing up purchases, stocking shelves and helping customers find just the right item.

Corky Bowers, a gift shop volunteer at Wellstar Kennestone Medical Center, helps customers pick out gifts for newborns. (Courtesy of Wellstar Health System)

She didn’t set out to re-enter the world of medicine. After working as a medical assistant in South Carolina, she spent two decades in retail at Hallmark stores in Cobb County. Retirement left Bowers — married, with three children and six grandchildren — looking for something that felt meaningful but manageable.

“I thought volunteering at the hospital I could still be around (medicine), but not have all that responsibility,” she said.

What she found was something more. Grandparents buying their first gift for a newborn grandchild. The new father searching for something special for his wife. The customer who just needs someone to listen.

“You remember those moments,” said Bowers, who’s volunteered at Kennestone for more than a decade. “The happy ones … and the ones that aren’t.”

For Crawford, her volunteer work at the gift shop was shaped by both habit and heartbreak. She had long volunteered — at church, at her children’s school, even as a child helping her mother assemble care packages for soldiers during the Vietnam War.

After moving to Georgia and raising her family, she eventually found her way to Kennestone, the hospital where the youngest of her two sons and a grandson were born. Her first assignment as a volunteer was at a nurse’s station lasted about three years. Then she moved to the gift shop, where she has volunteering four hours one day a week for nearly 12 years.

When her husband died seven years ago, volunteering became something steadier: a place to go, people to see, a rhythm to the busy week of family and tennis.

Especially as a widow, Crawford, 69, says her life “would be pretty lonely” if it weren’t for her volunteer work.

On Mondays, she orders inventory, stocks shelves and prepares for the steady flow of customers — about 200 a day — who pass through the shop’s new space in the hospital’s Yellow Tower. She also does something less tangible: She notices people.

Families who return week after week while a loved one is hospitalized. Nurses stopping in for a quick break. The new mother with two children at home and two new arrivals in tears, overwhelmed by the moment.

“I’ve prayed with people,” Crawford said. “They don’t need to know me by name. They just need to know somebody cared.”

A sense of purpose

That sense of purpose is not incidental, it’s essential, said Dr. German “Tony” Reyes, medical director of behavioral health at Wellstar Cobb. Retirement, he said, often brings a sudden loss of structure, identity and social connection.

“We are used to working 9 to 5, seeing the same people. That changes,” Reyes said. “And then people ask, ‘What do you do?’ and that identity shifts.”

What separates those who thrive from those who struggle, he shared, often comes down to one thing: purpose.

“If you don’t have purpose, you are going to have depression,” Reyes said. “Purpose is the strongest predictor of well-being in retirement.”

Volunteering can help restore both structure and connection. It offers a schedule to follow, people to see, and a way to align daily life with personal values such as generosity and service.

“The easiest way to feel good is to do something good,” he said.

At Kennestone, that sense of purpose is on display daily, even as the volunteer ranks have thinned.

As in hospitals across the country, Kennestone’s volunteer program took a hit during COVID-19. Volunteer services were paused for two years, and many older volunteers — once the backbone of the program — never returned.

Before the pandemic, the hospital had about 400 volunteers. Today, it has about half that number.

“We lost a lot of volunteers,” said Amy Saye, director of volunteers and patient advocates for Wellstar. “Most were in higher-risk groups, and many just didn’t come back.”

That shift has changed who volunteers, bringing in more students, often for shorter stints. It also underscores the value of those who stay, like Crawford and Bowers.

“They are there week in and week out,” Saye said. “They go above and beyond. They make a connection with every person they encounter.”

Corky Bowers (left), a gift shop volunteer, looks over gifts with Amy Saye, the director of volunteers and patient advocates at Wellstar Health System. (Courtesy of Wellstar Health System)

That consistency matters, she said, not just for operations but for atmosphere, turning a retail space into something more.

The shop itself was recently relocated, expanded, and now resembles a boutique, offering everything from flowers and cards to clothing and gifts. Run largely by volunteers, it also serves as a quiet fundraiser, with proceeds supporting the hospital through the Wellstar Foundation.

But its real impact is harder to measure.

“There’s no paycheck,” Saye said. “But there’s that volunteer high, as I like to call it.”

A reason to keep moving

Across metro Atlanta, that kind of contribution is both common and urgently needed. The region is home to tens of thousands of nonprofits, many of which rely heavily on volunteers to function. And yet participation lags, making the steady presence these two women and other volunteers provide even more meaningful.

For Bowers, the reward is simple: something to look forward to each week, a chance to connect, a reason to keep moving.

“Don’t sit around,” she said. “Do something. Even if it’s something small.”

Crawford, a mother of two and grandmother of four, agrees. Her Mondays in the gift shop set the tone for everything that follows. She gives of herself and gets back in return in the appreciation of her bosses and in the smiles she sees when she’s delivering flowers or balloons to patients.