Vilma Hunter, 88, says it was a seventh-month stint on a remote property in Scotland during her early twenties that instilled in her a life-long passion for volunteering.
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"I was very homesick," she said. "Every night when I said my prayers I would say, 'Please, let me go back to Australia.'
"When I arrived back it was three days before Christmas and I swore when I came home I'd help everybody else. Australia is such a wonderful country.
"I wanted to help others, be nice and meet people."
Since now and then Ms Hunter has racked up an impressive list of achievements fulfilling that mantra.
She has volunteered at countless sporting events in Newcastle and Sydney, including the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, the Paralympics, the Trans-Tasman Games, University Games, Youth Olympics and Master Games. Since 2005 she has travelled every year to Circular Quay, Sydney, to hand out flags for Australia Day.
Over her lifetime she has donated more than 40 litres of her sought-after O negative blood.
And on a daily basis, she says she tries to be kind to everyone.
"A smile means something," she said.
The work most important to her, however, is the volunteering she has undertaken at Newcastle's hospitals for almost 35 years. After retiring as a shop assistant in 1980s, Ms Hunter decided what she really wanted to do was assist those who were ill.
"My mother was a nurse. I wanted to do something that would be a help for them," she said.
She volunteered at the now closed Royal Newcastle Hospital for 21 years, between 1985 and 2006. This is her 26th year volunteering at the John Hunter Hospital.
Each Tuesday and Sunday she delivers newspapers to all the private patients at the hospital, then sorts the mail to be sent to the hospital's outpatients.
"I must be Australia's oldest paper boy," she said, laughing.
Finally, she is left to keep the patients in the hospital's transfer area company before they are taken home or to another hospital. She serves them tea, coffee and sandwiches.
"I love every moment of it," Ms Hunter said. "And the staff are very kind to me."
Sally Cogan, manager of volunteer services at the John Hunter, said Ms Hunter was one of her "most reliable" helpers.
"Vilma is amazing. She's always there when you need her," Ms Cogan said. "She's a lovely, considerate and generous person. Whenever it's a volunteer's birthday she always brings them a small gift.
"It's unbelievable her age and her energy. She runs rings around me."
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