Dozens of times every Friday afternoon, Ava DesVeaux knocks twice on a hospital room door, peeks in, and if the patient is awake, smiles and announces, "Hi. My name is Ava. I’m a volunteer here. Do you mind if I come in?"
If the answer is yes, she rolls in a cart stocked with little comforts like notepads, playing cards and stress balls — items that can make a hospital room feel a bit more reassuring.
But often, what patients turn out to need most isn’t on the cart at all. It’s a moment of connection that comes after the "Sure, I’ll take a puzzle book," and DesVeaux’s calm inquisitiveness: "Great! How is your day going?"
That kind of connection is at the heart of a volunteer program at Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center. Each week, about 20 volunteers visit patients with care carts, offering comfort items — and, just as importantly, a few minutes of conversation. The visits create opportunities for patients to feel seen, heard and supported in ways that go beyond medical treatment.
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"I love walking in there with a smile and seeing a patient's face light up," said DesVeaux, 20, a rising junior at University of North Carolina Wilmington. "There have been times where I have cried with patients. We just sit there and we laugh and we pray, and I get to know them on a personal level."
A simple idea
The care cart program, which began in 2024, was designed to give volunteers a natural, comfortable way to enter a room and start a conversation. And it’s been a smashing success, said Erin Barajas, director of patient services at Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center.
"It can be difficult to just kind of do a cold-call walking into a patient’s room, saying, ‘Hey, do you need anything?’" Barajas said. "We were looking for a way to have our volunteers rounding on patients with the thought that some of our patients need someone to talk to, and what a nice comfort it is to have that."
Volunteers wheel the cart on seven floors of the hospital, and Barajas said they are hoping to expand the program so all units can get in on the action.
"It’s been universally popular all the way around," Barajas said.
The care cart is just one way volunteers help out at New Hanover Regional Medical Center. There are approximately 400 active volunteers at the hospital, assisting in roles ranging from patient support volunteers to greeters and shuttle cart drivers.
Volunteers range from young adults like DesVeaux to retirees, and there’s plenty of room for more local residents to get involved. High schoolers can also take part; the hospital is welcoming a crop of junior volunteers this summer.
Driven to listen
For DesVeaux, a biology major from the Raleigh area, volunteering at the hospital has reinforced her calling to attend medical school and become a physician.
She had a not-so-rosy experience with the medical field as a child, when she suffered from an autoimmune disease that she said took too long for doctors to diagnose and had her repeatedly in the hospital.
She’s healthy now, but she never forgot the experience of feeling like her concerns were being brushed off. It’s the driving force that makes her want every patient she speaks with to feel that they have her undivided attention.
Volunteering "has changed my mindset 100% about how I can be the doctor that’s going to listen to you," DesVeaux said. "I can be the doctor who’s comforting. Treatment isn’t just medicine."
From patient to volunteer
Ken Welch had a different motivation for volunteering at Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center — it was because of the care he received there as a patient.
Welch’s retirement got off to a bumpy start in the fall of 2025, when just a few months after moving to Wilmington from Little Rock, Arkansas, he found himself in the hospital in need of major colon surgery.
He didn’t plan on learning so much so fast about the medical care available at Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center, but his 18-day stay opened his eyes. And he was impressed.
"The entire time I was there, the hospital staff was amazing and wonderful. The nurse, the nursing assistants — it didn’t matter who it was. They were really responsive," he recalled. "A week after my surgery, I said, ‘I’m going to volunteer here.’"
He held tight to that pledge he made to himself, and a few months later, in January 2026, Welch submitted an online application to become a hospital volunteer.
Now, he spends one afternoon a week pushing the care cart around the fourth floor, mostly visiting cardiac and wound-care patients.
Welch figures he pops into 25 to 30 rooms during every weekly shift. Some people clearly feel crummy and don’t want to talk; others invite him in for a chat. Welch said a couple of patients have told him they plan to follow in his footsteps and become volunteers at the hospital after they’ve recovered, too.
He’s looking forward to helping train new volunteers this summer, and he’s already scouting additional ways he can help at the hospital, such as sitting on volunteer committees.
"If you’re in the mood to volunteer, the hospital gives you a chance to do that, and it’s not a big-time commitment," he said. "It allows you to help someone, and help your community."
