Cynthia Butcher came to Mission in 1969 after teaching in England for five years.
She flew to Montreal, crossed Canada by Greyhound bus and taught Home Economics at Mission Secondary School for the next 19 years.
In 1988 she stopped teaching full-time and started substituting, discovering Grade 4s, the cafeteria program in the three high schools and the Special Needs program.
Butcher also joined Mission Hospital Auxiliary (now known as Mission Health Care Auxiliary Society), thanks to her neighbor, Dorothy Pohoda.
It wasn’t Butcher’s first time volunteering.
“When I was a kid I volunteered because it was the time when you could go door-to-door collecting. I used to do it for the sea cadets because my uncle was involved with them,” she explained adding she had to give up volunteer work for a time because working full-time and running a household “took all my energies.”
She returned to volunteering after quitting her full-time job.
A member of the auxiliary for almost 34 years, Butcher has been convener of the candy stripes/junior volunteers since she first joined and therefore is on the executive and has been responsible for the Memorial Fund since 1996.
“I hadn’t been in there five minutes and I was in charge of the candy stripers because it’s amazing the number of older women who are scared of teenagers,” said Butcher.
However, as a teacher, who taught Grades 8-10, Butcher knew how to talk to teens.
She has worked at Ambulatory Day Care, reception and at the Cottage, reorganized all the photo albums, written the History of MHCA and is responsible for the AGM report and organizing the display case by reception at Mission Memorial Hospital.
Butcher was also President of MHCA from 2011-2013 and was proud to be made a Life Member in 2015.
Volunteering is part of Butcher’s life; she feels that it is important to be a contributing member of society and to give back to the community when retired.
She enjoys the social aspect of the auxiliary and is pleased to say that she now has close friends who are not necessarily teachers.
When working at the hospital she often sees people who were her students years before. Since she joined in 1988, the auxiliary has changed. Many of the services offered are no longer available – first with the reorganization in the 1990s when Fraser Health took over from a local Hospital Board, and now from COVID. However, volunteers continue to help where they are most needed.
