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Health Care Hero Volunteer: JERRY CRAIG
By Holly Fisher
Special Projects Editor
Even before 8 a.m., Jerry Craig is full of energy. While volunteering at one of Roper Hospital’s information desks, he greets one of his favorite doctors with an enthusiastic “How are you?” Craig responds to the doctor’s own greeting with a boisterous “Great! Have a wonderful day!”
The brief exchange is a perfect example of Craig’s giving spirit. A retired attorney and former law professor at The Citadel, Craig has devoted his retirement to helping others.
Two days a week, Craig volunteers at Roper, working one day at the information desk and another day as a patient representative, talking to new patients and their families.
“When people come to the hospital, they don’t want to be here if they’re visiting or a patient,” Craig said. “If you can make them have a slight smile on their face, it makes their day better.”
Craig started volunteering at Roper in January 2002, a few weeks after his father passed away in a North Carolina hospital.
The hospital workers were so good and caring to his father, it inspired Craig, and he promised himself he would volunteer in Charleston.
Craig started his volunteer work with the family reception center, serving as a liaison between the operating room and patients’ waiting families.
After five hip replacements and prostate cancer surgery, Craig took on his current and less physically demanding volunteer work at the information desk and as a patient representative. Craig also was elected president of Roper Hospital Auxiliary for 2006 to 2008.
When he isn’t volunteering at Roper, Craig is singing tenor with the Charleston Men’s Chorus and is a member of the Retired Senior Volunteer Program and the Rotary Club of St. Andrews. Craig attends the Baptist Church of Charleston, where he is a substitute Sunday school teacher, Sunday school class social chairman and member of the adult sanctuary choir.
Recently, Craig was appointed by the governor as one of five members of the Institute for Mental Disease Study Committee. With Medicaid about to make some changes to its payment procedures, the committee is tasked with looking at how the state will handle funding cutbacks for the mentally ill, Craig said.
Craig also will be serving on the Charleston County Foster Care Review Board, a position he had in the 1990s when practicing family law.
Craig said he stays just as busy with his volunteer work as he did spending 31 years as an attorney and college professor.
And his work at Roper is particularly meaningful.
“I don’t want to sound melodramatic and trite, but I’ve received a lot of blessings in life,” Craig said. “It’s time to put back. That’s what I want to do. I tell them (at the hospital) I would pay them to let me volunteer—that’s how much I enjoy it.”
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