Good morning. Volunteers are a powerful and underappreciated engine of Canada’s health systems. The Globe is launching a series on those unpaid helpers, starting with the women filling the gaps at Toronto’s SickKids. More on that below, along with intergenerational friendships and the King’s taxes.

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Good morning, I’m Jennifer Yang, a health science reporter with The Globe and Mail.

In 2023, 12,589 children underwent surgical procedures at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, Canada’s biggest pediatric health centre. One of them was my daughter.

My second child was born with serious medical issues, undergoing her first surgery at three months old. I remember thinking how adorably clueless she looked as she was being wheeled into the operating room – then feeling instantly unravelled as soon as she disappeared behind those doors. My sweet tiny baby, just three months outside my body, was about to be cut open with a scalpel.

But when I reached the waiting room, I began to feel grounded again. My husband and I were greeted by two retirement-aged women, who registered us and walked us through next steps. Their faces are blurred in my memory now but I can still feel their warm, maternal presence. And I remember how they gently acknowledged my welling eyes with empathetic smiles, knowing better than to ask, “Are you okay?” Of course I wasn’t, and that question would have only burst the dam.

Later, I was surprised to learn that the women working in the waiting room were not paid staff. They were volunteers with the Women’s Auxiliary, a group I’d never heard of before. I started noticing their bright, turquoise jackets all over the hospital, and grew curious about who they were.

So when my editor at The Globe requested story pitches for a summer series on health care volunteers, I knew I wanted to write about the Women’s Auxiliary Volunteers. My reporting brought me all over the hospital, where the volunteers serve a dozen different roles and services, and into the auxiliary’s basement headquarters, where they keep their sewing machines, bravery beads and stocks for the gift shop.

As a fundraising group, the Women’s Auxiliary is a force, raising more than $23-million for the hospital since 1993. And as a volunteer organization, they provide a range of services that aren’t medical in nature but can be healing nevertheless: supplying toys to cancer patients; bringing library books to children stuck in their beds; noticing a parent who’s struggling, and giving them a snack or shoulder to cry on.

“SickKids would be a shadow of the great place that it is without the volunteer force that comes in every day,” neurosurgeon James Rutka told me.

There are worrying signs, however, that Canadian health care volunteers are coming under strain. The most recent Statistics Canada data show that between 2018 and 2023, volunteer rates declined across the country and volunteer hours were particularly hard hit in the hospital sector, plunging by nearly 50 per cent. Women – the predominant volunteer work force in health systems – also saw their volunteering hours drop across all sectors by 21 per cent.

So far, SickKids’ Women’s Auxiliary appears to be facing these headwinds with the same sturdy passion that’s ensured their survival over 76 years. You can read more about the group in my piece published today – the first instalment of Care Between the Lines, The Globe’s summer series profiling the work of Canada’s health care volunteers.

Intergenerational friendships are a rich source of solidarity – and fun – in the LGBTQ community. From mentorships, dialogue groups and storytelling workshops to a groundswell of art introducing young people to historic queer and trans icons, there is growing appreciation for spending time among those of different generations.

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