shortcake2012, I trained to be a volunteer for hospice for the reasons that you speak of. The training took 10 weeks. I made it to week 7. During the seventh week, we were told that we needed to give hospice receipts for our gas expenses, for any flowers or cards that we might give to the families, etc. They wanted a copy of my nursing license too. I'm not sure why. The reason they wanted our receipts were for tax write off purposes. Because they are a for profit organization. My first thought was, what do my receipts have to do with you? I made the decision not to move forward with the training for that reason. Apparently there had been another volunteer the previous year who felt conflicted for the same reasons I did. The idea of being there for families at such a difficult time really did appeal to me. Having been on the other side of this, I know that what you are doing makes a difference.