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Photos by Erin Nelson.
Alex Posey, a senior at Hewitt-Trussville High School, screens hospital personnel, patients, visitors, and family members as they arrive in the lobby at the Benjamin Russell Hospital for Children in downtown Birmingham on Feb. 17.
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Photos by Erin Nelson.
Posey has been working as a volunteer at Children’s of Alabama for two years.
Alex Posey needed volunteer hours.
The now-senior at Hewitt-Trussville High School, who will graduate this May, had been inducted into the National Honor Society, and with that honor came a responsibility to accrue service hours.
In his search for volunteer hours, Posey came across Children’s of Alabama. He decided that “would be fun and nice to help people out.” He started there in June 2019 and has been volunteering since. Posey, at the time unsure of his future beyond high school, found a path.
“So far, it has helped me decide that I want to do (the medical field),” Posey said.
He’s in the high school’s Fire and Emergency Services Academy, led by Trussville Fire & Rescue Training Officer Chris Franklin. Franklin, Posey said, is the person in the field he looks up to the most. He remembers a story of a baby that was a patient in the hospital and grew up to be a nurse in that same hospital.
“I was just always inspired by those stories,” he said.
At Children’s of Alabama, Posey has amassed approximately 120 service hours in the emergency department, as a nurse ambassador and at the COVID-19 screening tables. He was recently highlighted in the hospital’s spotlight newsletter.
“My favorite part about volunteering at Children’s is being surrounded by great people who are dedicated to helping children in need, however they can,” he said in the newsletter. “Also a favorite is the smile that is produced by scanning a kid’s stuffed animal’s temperature then giving it a sticker.”
Posey typically spends three hours at the hospital per visit, restocking shelves, helping nurses, cleaning rooms and hanging out with patients when parents need a break. Children’s, Posey said, encourages volunteers to take on extra shifts.
“I try to take as many as I can,” he said.
Standout moments for Posey in his volunteering include witnessing a “magical moment” of an hour-old baby helped in the trauma wing, loading the helicopter to transport a patient and becoming friends with young patients.
“I just always think, before I go into the room, I just pretty much try to imagine that kid is a friend of my baby cousins, so that makes it easier,” he said. “I’m still nervous to talk to the parents, but I’m not nervous at all when I try to talk to their kid or their baby. I just imagine they’re friends of my baby cousins that are 6 now, I think.”
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, volunteering was ended until August 2020, at which point Posey returned to the hospital. Since that time, he has worked at the screening table, which has taken strain off nurses and other personnel.
“It will get pretty weird whenever we don’t have to screen people in,” Posey said. “It feels a little weird that we have to do it now, but I understand it. I’ll probably look back and be proud that I helped out at least a few healthcare workers be a little bit less stressed. I think I’ll just be pretty proud of that.”
Posey plans to study at Jefferson State Community College to become an emergency medical technician. He hopes to work at a fire station and eventually become a paramedic. His time volunteering at Children’s of Alabama will undoubtedly prove beneficial.
“These experiences will help me a bit more than someone just going in blindly,” he said.
