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The Work We Do: Helene Fall, Eastern Long Island Hospital Auxiliary

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My name is Helene Fall and I’m the president of the Eastern Long Island Hospital Auxiliary. 

I am entering my fourth year as the auxiliary president and I’ve been a volunteer with the auxiliary for just about eight years. Really, my responsibility is to ensure that the various roles that auxiliarians undertake on a day-to-day basis — as well as the [three] branches — get accomplished.

We are a 200 member auxiliary.  

We have monthly meetings. … At that time, we get updates as to where all the auxiliary branch activities are. If they’re planning new types of activities, then there’s an approval process that we need to go to. 

Another one of my responsibilities as president was to be a member of the hospital board of trustees. Since our affiliation with Stony Brook University Medical Center as of July 1, that board of trustees no longer exists, and there’s the ELIH Association Board. I will also represent the auxiliary on that board. 

We’re a collective, so I’m one of many. We all work together to make sure that the auxiliary is successful. What that means is providing service here in the hospital, making sure the opportunity shop, which is located in downtown Greenport, is open five days a week, as well as we do a significant amount of fundraising for the hospital.

We go against the trend of what is happening across this country: our auxiliary still remains able to contribute over 20,000 hours every year to both the hospital and the opportunity shop.

It’s no secret that when the Woods sisters decided to donate the original building back in the 1900s, money needed to be raised to outfit the hospital. And that’s how the auxiliary really came into existence. We like to say we’ve existed for one year longer than the hospital has been around.

We are certainly part of the fabric of this hospital. Our mission remains the same today: 100% of what we raise, minus whatever small operating costs we might have, will always come back to this hospital.

“The Work We Do” is a Suffolk Times multimedia project profiling workers on the North Fork. It is made possible by Peconic Landing in Greenport. See photos on Instagram @thesuffolktimes.