OTTAWA, Ill. — The teenagers’ volunteer program at Ottawa Regional Hospital is strong and vital.

Matter of fact, another 14 teens were trained just last fall, bringing the total number involved in the program to 41.

According to Seneca Township High School student Kate Kirkton, the teenage volunteer program is as much fun as it is valuable to her future.

“I joined because I was really interested in going into the health profession, and I still am,” she said.

TAGS, or Teenage Group Service, was established at the hospital in 1992 and is a popular way for those age 14 through graduation to learn about hospital service, responsibility and commitment, says Jayne Nugent, the hospital’s director of volunteer services.

“I think what they take away from the program is a greater sense of responsibility, commitment, time management and learning about the different medical professions,” Nugent said. “They help the hospital, too. They help the nurses and unit assistants so they can attend to the patients. I don’t know what we’d without our volunteers.”

Nugent said there are both young men and women in TAGS from several high schools in the area, such as Seneca, Ottawa, Ottawa-Marquette, Serena and Streator. The uniforms they wear are green Ottawa Regional Hospital shirts with khaki or black pants.

TAGS volunteers help the hospital in so many ways, she said. A couple of their main responsibilities are to bring around a cart of ice to the patients’ rooms to refill their water. They take out the trashes while they’re in the rooms.

Sometimes they visit with the patients while they’re there.

“They don’t need to rush in and out,” Nugent said. “Some of these people never get to see kids their age. It’s nice when they can have a conversation with them.”

The teen volunteers also bring flowers up to the rooms and help with the hospital’s escort service to wheel patients from one place to another, deliver lab samples, bring medications from the pharmacy to the floors and other such jobs.

They also get to bring teddy bears up to the children who are patients.

“If there is a child,” Nugent said, “they deliver teddy bears we keep at the desk. That’s the funnest part.”

Once a year, the TAGS also help with the Christmas program at The Family Room, which is associated with the La Salle County Housing Authority. They hand out gifts, help take pictures with Santa and do other jobs there.

“I think it’s kind of an eye-opener for some of them,” Nugent said.

Aimee Nugent (Jayne Nugent’s daughter) and Haley Schrag are also TAGS volunteers who attend Seneca Township High School.

“It’s a really good program,” Aimee said. “It helps the community, and I like helping people. It’s also good because it lets you get a glimpse of the hospital.”

Aimee said when she first became a TAG three years ago, she thought she might want to be a nurse practitioner as a career. She thought volunteering at the hospital would be a great way to get an advance look at medical careers.

Since then, some of the classes she took at high school made her re-think her career choice. She now plans on studying chemical engineering.

Haley also enjoys volunteering at the hospital.

“It’s a lot of fun,” she said. “I like working with all the different patients. I give them water and food and talk with them. A lot of them don’t have people there.”

Haley said it’s a good feeling when the patients look forward to seeing her. She enjoys being able to bring some happiness in to their lives when she can.

Kate’s a people person, and she enjoys visiting with the patients after she brings them water and sometimes snacks. She asks them their name and birthday first to make sure she is bringing the correct food to the right person.

She’s learning some medical language, too, she said, such as, “NPO,” which means nothing by mouth. For those patients who are NPO, she may not bring water or snacks.

Kate wants to be a speech language pathologist someday After volunteering with TAGS, she is going to look into either minoring or getting a second major in Spanish while in college.

That’s because one of her patients spoke Spanish.

That would be nice, she said, to have as many Spanish-speaking people at health care centers as possible.