On paper, Barbara Cook is retired from a career as a corporate trainer.

But she’s still putting her professional skills to use for the eight hours per week she spends as a volunteer at Lawrence Memorial Hospital. In addition to her normal duties – cleaning rooms, helping staff, running errands for patients in the oncology wing – she recently helped write a training manual for the hospital’s volunteer escorts.

“I do not do well not being productive,” said Cook, 70. “I’ve always said I have an extra productivity gene. … I can only dust a table a certain number of times per week.”

A new program in Douglas County aims to bring more people like Cook out of their homes and into the field of volunteering. Starting next month, the Roger Hill Volunteer Center will organize a “Retired and Senior Volunteer Program.”

The program is the result of a $300,000 grant from the Corporation for National and Community Service that will be shared between the Roger Hill Center and the United Way of Greater Topeka Volunteer Center.

In particular, the grant aims to attract baby boomers – people born between 1946 and 1964.

“There’s a very strong push nationwide to recruit the baby boomer generation into volunteerism,” said Margaret Perkins-McGuinness, manager of the Roger Hill Volunteer Center, a service of the United Way of Douglas County. “As many of them move into the retirement stage … nonprofits and human-service agencies are looking at how they can leverage the support of this very large population.”

Perkins-McGuinness said one goal of the Douglas County program is to involve retirees in longer-term volunteering arrangements, as opposed to one-time events.

Jan Pollard, left, and Arlois McLay, both volunteers at Lawrence Memorial Hospital, wrap some gift items Monday in the hospital gift shop. Douglas and Shawnee counties have been awarded a three-year, 00,000 grant to implement a program to help promote volunteerism among baby boomers. Pollard has volunteered at LMH for seven years and McLay for five.

Already, agencies including Women’s Transitional Care Services, Meals on Wheels, Kansas Advocates for Better Care and Headquarters Counseling Center have expressed interest in participating in the program, she said.

Cook isn’t exactly a baby boomer, but she shares some characteristics with the group, including her advanced education and career experiences that weren’t as readily available to women of earlier generations.

“I think if there’s a job to be done and you know how to do it, and you’re on the spot, then do it,” she said.

Jan Pollard, 55, has been volunteering at LMH for the past seven years, since she retired from full-time work as an insurance agent. She now spends about four hours per week working in the hospital’s gift shop.

“Giving makes you feel good,” she said. “I like to be around people and I like to help people.”

Anyone interested in taking part in the program can call the Roger Hill Volunteer Center at 865-5030.