“I love helping people,” she said. “It’s more rewarding than most people think.”
Hoyt and other stylists at the salon donate their talents about once a week to patients who want to be pampered and feel good about themselves.
It is through a program developed by the facility called Gift of a Day.
“That day is based on the question: If you only had one day to live, what would it look like?” said Michael Sanders, volunteer coordinator for Crossroads.
“Once that question is answered, our staff members and volunteers work together to bring the gifts to life.”
Hoyt began volunteering about four years ago with the help of one of her former clients.
“One of my clients was a social worker for Crossroads and she began telling me about the facility,” she said. “I then asked her if they needed any volunteers, and I have been volunteering ever since.”
Sanders said he is pleased with what Hoyt brings to Hospice.
“She is amazing,” he said. “She is compassionate and amazingly generous with her time and talents. She donates her services to uplift our patients.”
Hoyt said the patients seem to enjoy when she and other stylists visit them, and said she feels the same.
“I truly love visiting the patients,” she said. “Everyone I meet has a unique story to tell and some of the patients don’t have family to visit them. So when I come to volunteer, that’s the highlight of their day.”
Hoyt also travels to other Crossroads facilities in Ohio.
“Wherever the patients are, I will go to them,” she said. “The farthest I have gone is Sidney, Ohio, which is an hour away from where I live.”
Brad Weeks, a friend of Hoyt’s, said he called her when his wife was pregnant.
Holly Weeks was experiencing a placenta percreta, a potentially life-threatening complication.
Weeks asked Hoyt if she could wash and style his wife’s hair at Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati.
“The next week, Kelly drove down from Dayton,” he said. “She spent an hour with my wife, cut her hair, cleaned up, visited with her, and refused to take any kind of gift or payment — not to mention she brought a bouquet of flowers.”
Weeks said he was truly grateful.
“Words don’t express the value of the things she does around the Dayton area,” he said.
“I can’t thank Kelly enough for coming to cut my wife’s hair.”
Holly Weeks added that it was one of the best haircuts she had ever received.
Hoyt has shared her experience with other stylists, who also have volunteered their talents.
“They don’t do it for recognition,” Sanders said. “They do it because it’s the right thing to do.”
Weeks said individuals such as Hoyt too often do not get the recognition they deserve.
“She does amazing things very quietly for the community,” he said, “working with people that literally cannot even say ‘thank you’ to her because sometimes they cannot speak.”
For more information about Crossroads, visit www.crossroadshospice.com or call Sanders at (937) 312-3170.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2402 or tgeter@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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