The 89-year-old former high school teacher and Army veteran has spent more than 11,200 hours volunteering at Northwestern Medicine Palos Hospital in Palos Heights in the past 24 years.
Thank you for supporting our journalism. This article is available exclusively for our subscribers, who help fund our work at the Chicago Tribune.Jack Heafey, 89, of Palos Heights, has logged more than 11,000 volunteer hours at Northwestern Medicine Palos Hospital and would have had more if not for the pandemic. “It broke his heart to leave during COVID," said department supervisor Nancy Kashin."When he came back, he was the only one. Nobody else returned.
“Any wife would say it gives me a bit of a break when he leaves the house,” Katherine Heafey said, adding that they’ve been married since August of 1966. “He comes home from the hospital with stories and goodies, little bits of food. They are always celebrating something there. He loves the department.”She said another reason he keeps volunteering is because of the short and easy commute: The couple lives across the street from the hospital.
Nancy Kashin, supervisor of the Sterile Supply Processing Department at Northwestern Medicine Palos Hospital in Palos Heights, shares a laugh with longtime volunteer Jack Heafey, who has helped out at the hospital for 24 years. Heafey, who volunteers for four hours two days per week — a reduction from the 12 hours per week he worked before the pandemic — said he benefits from the time he spends at the hospital.“It provides exercise, and the social intercourse with people is fun — telling jokes with people. And you learn about life itself. true conversations and you see how to handle things when they approach ,” he shared.
Before he began, he got some advice from trusted advisors — his two sisters who were nurses. “When I came here I talked to them. They said don’t bull---- patients. People know they are sick. Have straight conversations with them,” he said. Heafey and a few other volunteers began meeting as the ROMEO Club, aka Retired Old Men Eating Out. For years they spent time at Hackney’s in Palos Park after a shift.
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