Visit with A Volunteer
Mike Ucci
Mike Ucci, 80, is grateful for the life he’s living. So much so, that his goal as an Eisenhower Health volunteer is to transfer his gratitude into joy to anyone with whom he comes into contact.
Mike retired at age 55 to the Coachella Valley from Chicago. After about 10 years of retirement, Mike ‘s wife, Barbara, decided to join Eisenhower as a volunteer. It wasn’t long before she recruited her husband. (“Happy wife, happy life,” says Mike.)
Mike’s volunteerism has shifted over the last 15 years. On Tuesday afternoons, he would sing, dance and tell jokes at Eisenhower’s Memory Care Center before it closed in the pandemic.
“I miss that terribly,” he says. “It was very, very rewarding.”
Continuing to volunteer, Mike works Thursdays at the hospital’s errand room, directing visitors, delivering flowers or taking patients to their ride home via wheelchair.
“I try to put a smile on everyone’s face every day,” says Mike. “I’m a happy guy. I’m very pleased with my life. I’ve been blessed.”
“I like to pass that on to whoever I see.”
When the hospital’s summer students visited, Mike enjoyed taking them under his wing and teaching his brand of remedies.
“I’m going to show you that everyone we encounter in this hospital - patient, employee, another volunteer - before we leave them, they will either laugh or smile,” he would impart, adding, “it takes just as much effort to smile as it does to frown.”
Construction has already begun for the new location of Eisenhower’s Memory Care Center. In the meantime, visitors and staff alike may hear an echo of the sounds of days’ past. It’s not the ghost of Sinatra or Elvis returning to desert, it’s Mike waiting to return to his stage.
