Pink Ladies set to celebrate 50th year

A young mother spends a string of sleepless nights beside the tiny incubator, holding her infant son, who clings to life by the slenderest of threads.
A wife of 50 years spends her golden wedding anniversary in a chair beside a cold steel hospital bed. She prays for her life’s companion lying there, holding his hand and remembering a happier anniversary when they’d danced together by candlelight.
A father desperately hopes for a miracle as his little girl struggles for another day. Just last summer, she was a streak of energy on the soccer field.
Each is trapped in a waking nightmare. But then, the door swings open and they see a flash of pink.
Someone has arrived to offer them comfort and hope.
The lady in the pink jacket puts a pot of flowers down on a nearby table and turns to the weary person sitting vigil. She makes herself available to listen, to run an errand, to offer coffee or a book.
They are grateful for her quiet, reassuring presence, eased by her words of comfort and the kindness in her eyes.
What they don’t realize is that this unassuming senior has been busy on their behalf in other ways they haven’t imagined.
She also helped raise money to pay for some of the vital equipment that is giving their loved ones a chance to survive.
She also made the keepsake pillow that the young mother will take home from the hospital. She spent hours on her feet, selling gifts downstairs to raise more money for equipment.
She and 51 others like her make up the Jackson Hospital Auxiliary, better known as the “pink ladies.” It is one of the oldest such chapters in the state of Florida.
On Nov. 3, the organization will celebrate its 50th anniversary, and it invites the public to attend.
The event will be held at the Hudnall Building next to the hospital, from 5 to 7 p.m.
Auxiliary President Elizabeth Saunders will give a brief history of the Pink Ladies’ activities, and offer a Power Point presentation, with photos from 1959 and through the ensuing years, of the pink ladies’ activities.
Gathering the materials for the presentation, Saunders spent 10 months reading through 50 years of minutes taken at monthly and quarterly meetings of the organization.
“One night I’d be laughing and the next I’d be crying,” Saunders said of her research. “The kinds of things they were able to rejoice in for those patients were very touching, and very telling. I was very impressed with the dedication through the years. They not only donated their hours, going down and helping with the patients and raising money, they reached out in times of disaster to the larger community as well.”
Currently, 52 Pink Ladies serve the community, most of them retired. The oldest, Saunders believes, is in her 80s, but the volunteer in question is shy about giving the actual number.
What many people may not know is that the Pink Ladies’ support goes beyond their direct care for patients and their loved ones.
Through the years, they’ve bought thousands upon thousands of dollars in equipment for the hospital.
Most recently, they bought respiratory and radiology equipment.
In the past, they’ve bought a myriad of medical equipment, and one item that was a bit unusual —  a golf cart.
It is used to take patients with limited mobility from a vehicle to the hospital, or from the building to the parking lot. It’s also a security vehicle.
Saunders said the ladies have a motto that serves as the foundation of their organization — “without God, we can do nothing.”
Many of the Pink Ladies who serve Jackson Hospital have intensely personal reasons for joining the corps. Saunders is one of them.
Illness took her husband several years ago, and it was that experience which led her to become a Pink Lady.
“During the last 15 years of his life, my husband was very, very ill,” Saunders said. “He had a kidney transplant and was sick all the time. I practically lived at the UAB hospital during that time. I was going back and forth, and I was alone up there with no family.
“I would always feel insecure, not knowing what was going to happen from day to day. But let me tell you, the Pink Ladies were the ones who came into the room to see about me, to give me words of encouragement. They helped me, they prayed with me, they would go get a magazine or a book to try and get me focused on something other that what I couldn’t do anything about. They reminded me that God was still in control and would help me. One day, when my husband and I were coming home together, I said to him, ‘I want to be a Pink Lady when I retire.’
And after winding up her 40-year career as an educator, Saunders didn’t forget that goal.
“I know I can’t give back to them, but at least I can give to other people. That’s my way of thanking them. As a Pink Lady myself now, I know that kind of passing-along would mean the world to me, so I feel even more now that doing this is honoring them, and a tribute they would appreciate.”
Not too long ago, Saunders had a chance to re-acquaint herself with one of the Pink Ladies who helped her years earlier. 
The woman is now in her 90s — and still a Pink Lady.
Jackson Hospital invites the public to come out and help thank those who have given their service.