Decades of films and television episodes depict candy stripers as perky pinafore-clad teenage volunteers who spread cheer by delivering a smile, meal trays and water pitchers to hospital patients. But, for those who committed to the job in Bergen over the years, the rewards and memories are vivid and life changing.

"I always wanted to be a doctor from the time I was in sixth or seventh grade," says pediatrician Nancy Rothenberg, a candy striper at what was then Englewood Hospital in the 1970s. "Being a candy striper confirmed all my expectations about what medicine is all about and how to care for sick people. The whole atmosphere at Englewood was for me."

Candy stripers had minimal contact with patients but were kind faces that represented the hospital by delivering flowers, meals, newspapers and magazines to patients who often had few visitors.

The trademark pink, salmon or red pinafores disappeared some 30 years ago in most northern New Jersey hospitals but the volunteer programs have evolved and expanded. They draw hundreds of adult and teen volunteers to Holy Name Hospital in Teaneck, The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, and what are now Englewood Hospital and Medical Center (EHMC) and Hackensack University Medical Center.

Pride, honor and responsibility defined being a candy striper, says Rothenberg, who maintains offices in Bergenfield and Old Tappan and is an attending member of the Department of Pediatrics at the 520-bed EHMC on Engle Street.

"There was no time for loafing on the job," Rothenberg says. "I worked weekends, holidays, whenever I could."
She racked up about 1,000 hours in a couple of years and would forego social occasions to be on the floor. Many of the hospital's 600 volunteers are apt to do the same today.

"I missed every football game at Northern Valley Regional High in Demarest," says the 1975 graduate. "It's funny because, now that I'm part of Englewood as a doctor, there are still a few people still here from when I was a volunteer. The hospital holds a very special place in my heartÉthey are just good memories. I really recommend to anyone interested in medicine to spend time volunteering in a hospital or nursing home."

Karen Chapman, the director of volunteer services at the 361-bed Holy Name Hospital on Teaneck Road, was a volunteer candy striper in the 1960s. The program was smaller then, and Holy Name now has 400 active volunteers.

"I was 14 when I started as a candy striper," says Chapman. "I remember talking to my parents about it and my mother saying to me that it was a big commitment to be a candy striper. That it was not around the corner from where we lived in Cliffside Park."

Chapman wore a full skirt, white collared shirt and trademark pinafore that was either supplied by the hospital from uniform stores or in some cases, made at home.

"For a year, I took food trays off a cart and into people's rooms," Chapman says. "I delivered flowers, and if you were assigned to a nursing unit, you brought fresh water to patients. That's all they allowed you to do back then."

The footprint of Holy Name was majestic, Chapman says.

"There was a big twisting road from the entrance and you walked up this tremendous staircase and I thought, 'Isn't this exciting,'" she says. "It was like a trip to the library É there was quiet and order. The sisters were everywhere. If you did it wrong, you did it over. There was no hanging around, no loitering around the hospital. You signed in, did your job, signed out, and left. This was a commitment É you almost felt like you worked here. You were very special."

A Call to Serve

Sure there was the hope of meeting the next Dr. Kildare, Dr. Ben Casey, or Dr. Steven Kiley from Marcus Welby, M.D.

"You bet," say a few former candy stripers. The influence of episodic television in some ways drove the candy striper program, but it was more about volunteerism and exploring a future career in nursing or medicine.

Sandra Dee was a candy striper in Tammy and the Doctor in 1963, and Patty Duke took on a candy striper role as Patty Lane in television's popular mid-'60s comedy The Patty Duke Show. There have been comedic jabs at the job in plenty of films thereafter, but the true volunteers shrug off or laugh with the pokes.

Saddle River resident Barbara Lewis served as a volunteer Nightingale at The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood. It was the hospital's version of a candy striper and Nightingales wore blue-striped pinafores, white stockings and Oxford-style shoes.

"My parents brought me up that as soon as you were able to give back, you did," says Lewis, a graduate of Ridgewood High School and the former president of the Saddle River branch of The Valley Hospital Auxiliary.

"If you were a Nightingale volunteering on a floor, you stayed on that floor," she says. "You did what was asked of you. You kept checking back at the desk and they would give you something else to do."

More than 1,700 volunteers and 2,000 auxilians donated more than 208,000 hours to Valley Health System last year, but when the building footprint on North Van Dien was smaller, Lewis would sometimes run into friends of the family who'd be admitted. She never found it difficult to bring a smile to their faces.

"I could get a totem pole to talk to me," Lewis says. "That was something that was always unwritten. The nurses would say no one had been down to see Mrs. McGillicuddy, for example. They would encourage you to talk to the patients a little bit. I knew a lot of people in town and at that time there weren't a lot of the privacy rules that exist today, so you could talk to them."

A next-door neighbor covertly lured Lewis into joining the auxiliary more than a decade ago.

"Her husband played a lot of golfÉshe knocked on the door one day and asked me for $10 ...I thought her husband had not given her enough money and I gave her the money. She says 'Now you are a member of the Saddle River branch of The Valley Hospital Auxiliary.' She went ahead and got me involved."

Lewis never quit and remains an active member of The Valley team.

"I was a Nightingale for two years," Lewis says. "And I was president of the auxiliary for two years -- from 1998 to 2000."

An Introduction to the Health Profession

Holly Boulton Nickas was exploring a medical career when she became a candy striper at Hackensack Hospital in the late 1960s.

She anticipated meeting fellow teens from neighboring towns, and did.

"There were a mix of people -- from Maywood, Rochelle Park and many other towns," says Nickas, of Hackensack. "I joined partly because of friends and I didn't know if I wanted to be a nurse."

Hackensack University Medical Center now has a volunteer population of more than 1,600, but was a fraction of the size when Nickas, 53, donned a pinafore and cap. She returned to volunteering in 1995 and serves as a dispatcher/courier in the volunteer office.

"When you first became a candy striper you were assigned to different floors and for that first year basically served food trays," she says. "You were taught manners ...you had to have manners."

Stripers earned a hat in their second year, following instructional classes that covered health and precision hospital housekeeping.

"I learned how to make beds properly in that class ...how to make hospital corners. I remember the capping ceremony and thinking that this must be what it's going to feel like if I become a nurse ...and I remember the pride involved."

Volunteers didn't need a map to navigate the hallways, they say.

"Hackensack was smaller and there were no off-campus sites," Nickas says. "There were little brick homes that were the family orthopedics office or outpatient psychiatry, for example. Things were not built up as they are now."
Second-year candy stripers assisted nurses on a limited scale. They were required to know the layout of the hospital and visited various departments such as the morgue.

"We learned the vitals ...heart rate, blood pressure, and how to use the old-fashioned thermometers," she says. "We really didn't have a lot of patient contact but you were exposed to learning the vitals. It was preparation to go into the medical field ...and a lot did go into nursing."

More than delivering flowers or gift shop items, the experience exposed Nickas to the mechanics and daily routine within hospital walls.

"We're very appreciated and respected from the top down," she says. "You'll be walking in the halls and from the vice presidents and physicians to the facilities staff, people say hello to you."

Janet Pomponio, 78, of Wood-Ridge has been a volunteer at HUMC for five years but was a paid volunteer at Hackensack some 63 years ago before the candy striper program was set in motion.

"I got paid 25 cents an hour back then -- it was around 1946," says the former Wood-Ridge High School student. "It wasn't much money and it was towards the end of the war when the hospital couldn't get help. It was all new to three or four of us who all went together. By the end of the week, I'd make four or five dollars."

Pomponio turned away from nursing when she realized that perhaps she didn't have a knack for it.

"I had rolled a tray over a man's foot not knowing that was his problem ...I rolled it and his toe was there. I decided I didn't want to be a nurse for a living."

Hackensack was just a "T"-shaped building when Pomponio was a volunteer in a skirt and blouse. These days it's more comfortable with slacks and a shirt.

"You couldn't wear slacks," she says. "But we didn't have uniforms because it was before candy stripers. But the best part of the job was just doing it. It's still terrific now. We're needed and appreciated even more so than in 1946 because back then all we did were deliver the food trays. Now we go to medical records, the blood bank, lab, ICU ...everywhere. And we make it fun because we all like each other ...we're like a family."