Entering Longmont United Hospital’s main lobby entrance, all are greeted by volunteers who guide visitors to their destinations. One such volunteer is Peggy Bangham, a woman in her 70s who sits behind the desk with a smile on her face, welcoming all. Through a passion for helping others, Bangham has built a lifetime of adventure through volunteerism, of which LUH plays a small part.
Bangham has always had a love for people. Growing up, her parents were always active and volunteering for something, she said. It quickly became a way of life in her family.
When she was young she volunteered at a camp run by the Red Cross for severely disabled children where she learned she had a passion for working with young people. When it came time for her to choose a career, she chose to teach.
Beginning her teaching career as a kindergarten teacher in a small-town environment, she soon grew restless. She visited her parents in Maryland while seeking a teaching position in the area but soon found an opportunity too good to pass up.
Her mother found an ad in a local newspaper searching for Peace Corp and Vista volunteers — a program dedicated to the idea that all children need a mentor.
“That sounds exciting,” Bangham said she thought to herself and immediately signed up for three years to teach other teachers how to teach.
The Peace Corps took Bangham to Paraguay where she was partnered with a host family — a family she still considers her own and visits as often as she can.
“My job, along with two of my co-workers … was to go around to country schools and do workshops and motivation,” Bangham said. Her work there led to a school being named after her after she helped the locals raise money to turn two shacks into a two-room school building.
Later a law was enacted in Paraguay that stated buildings could not be named after someone who is living. The school was then renamed Baby Jesus.
“At least I was replaced by someone important,” Bangham said, excited that the school still had meaning in the community.
After leaving the Peace Corps as a volunteer, Bangham returned to the United States to once again teach, this time in Illinois. It didn’t take long, however, before she decided it was time to expand her own learning and she returned to school to work on her master’s degree in English and Spanish.
Remembering her time in the Peace Corps, Bangham decided to walk down to the local office near George Washington University where she learned the organization was hiring for country directors in several newly opened opportunities in various countries around the world.
Bangham was able to travel to places in western Asia, eastern Europe and the South Pacific in a year, allowing her to work with local teachers.
After several more years of working in the Peace Corps, Bangham found her way to Longmont as she visited a friend from graduate school. Enjoying the area, she eventually found a job teaching at Frederick High School and later Skyline High School, where she established a program to help monolingual parents utilize the skills of Spanish-speaking students to translate during parent-teacher conferences.
Bangham has traveled the world as a volunteer and a teacher. She enjoys meeting new people and learning their stories and seeing what the next adventure will bring. Although retired, she seeks opportunities to combine her love of travel with her volunteer work. In addition to volunteering at LUH, she chaperones delegations for Longmont Sister Cities which has allowed her to visit both Chino, Japan and Cuidad Guzman, Mexico. She looks forward to being a part of the first delegation to the city’s newest sister city relationship with the Northern Arapaho in Wyoming.
“Some of it kinda falls in my lap, like the Peace Corps, some of it is teaching, which is an interest … some of it is just I want to try that,” Bangham said is how she finds her adventures. “When I found ways to combine volunteering and travel, or employment and travel, I was ecstatic.”
Although Bangham has spent most of her life volunteering she finds personal satisfaction in gaining new experiences, learning the stories of others and knowing she is helping somebody in some way, she said.
“If I can’t be a nurse or a doctor, I can help direct someone where to go,” she laughed. “It brings me a sense of serving my community and keeping myself busy and meeting new people and finding really cool interesting stories,” she said.
More is in store for Bangham as she joins a Habitat for Humanity team who hopes to visit Nepal, assuming the pandemic doesn’t prevent the trip.
“For the young people, if you’re looking for a career … volunteer, try it out … try something out. Work with the Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts to see how you get along with kids. Try to find a way to expand your horizons by helping people. You get the satisfaction from helping people but you also get knowledge,” Bangham advised.
