Ritter works for Tender Loving Care, a hospice with offices in Louisburg and Garner, which serves Wake and five other counties.

What volunteers offer to terminally ill patients and their families is "not only physical comfort but spiritual and emotional comfort," Ritter said. "That's what we try to do our best to give."

After the patient is gone, Tender Loving Care gives families "bereavement support" for one year, as per Medicare rules.

For the terminally ill, Ritter explained, a volunteer may sit with the patient for a few hours while the caregiver takes care of personal business. For families who have lost loved ones, she said, a volunteer may do no more than listen, or perhaps bake a cake to cheer them up.

Each volunteer gets 12 hours of initial training plus ongoing training, she said. Volunteers don't have to continually accept work but, once they do, are expected to commit at least two hours per week, Ritter said.

The volunteers don't provide medical care -- nurses do that -- but they are trained how to reach professional personnel when necessary.

The work pays nothing, of course, but it's very rewarding in other ways, Ritter said.

"It's the same reward I get when I go home at the end of the day," she said. "I go home realizing that I have spent my day really serving someone -- making the world better, putting comfort and joy into someone's life."

This kind of work is a calling for Ritter, 54, who serves as Tender Loving Care's chaplain, bereavement coordinator and volunteer services coordinator. She grew up in North Raleigh and attended N.C. State, and spent 15 years in Japan teaching English before deciding to return to the United States and enter the seminary.

She has theological degrees from Seaton Hall and Duke.

The group also is inviting families of those who have lost loved ones to a "Day of hope and healing" Oct. 28 in Warren County. For information about that event, or to learn more about volunteering, you can reach Ritter at 773-4865 or anniecorn@mindspring.com.

Sounds like a good move -- if you have the heart.