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Volunteering Is Her Passion

She estimates she spends about 60 hours a week making and delivering items to primarily nursing homes in Montrose, Delta, and Mesa Counties. And how long has she been delivering her made-from-the-heart items like blankets, pillows, cards, books, and more to Family Health West? Good question, she said, when recently asked.

L to R: Sandy Longmore and Amanda Henderson-Wright holding handmade items for FHW patients made with love and care by Sandy.

“Oh, at least ten years or more now,” Sandy Longmore, said on a cool windy day in the parking lot of the FHW Hospital. “I started here by delivering to the Oaks and then the Willows, and then the hospital.”

Just as the Oaks and the Willows have changed into FHW Memory Care, so has the color of Sandy’s hair and sometimes her health. But, Amanda Wright, FHW Patient Advocate will tell you, Sandy hasn’t missed a month in her delivery, ever. And the items Sandy brings have only increased over the years. She’s never been a patient at FHW and she doesn’t have a personal connection, but she is passionate about making items with care and love, and delivering them to ensure they wipe away a child’s tears or put a smile on a face.

“I call Sandy our earth angel,” Amanda said. “She has been coming with her delivery every month since before I worked in Patient Experience.”

I get home from the Food Bank and sit down in front of the television with my sewing machine in my lap.

“I love it. That’s what I just do,” she said.

Sandy also connects to women in the Colorado prisons through a non-profit ministry, Sharing Ministries Food Bank (Montrose), The Dolphin House Child Advocacy Center (Montrose), and more than a dozen nursing homes between her house in Montrose and Fruita. The only hospital she donates to is the FHW Hospital, she said.

As Amanda had her hands full and was walking back into the FHW Hospital, Sandy waved goodbye and said, see you next month!

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