As a volunteer at Lawrence + Memorial Hospital in New London, the job of Maria Corazzelli of Groton is to send patients like Mary White to the beach.

“Listen to the sound of the waves. Hear the waves come in and go out. In and out, in and out,” she says to White, a Niantic resident who recently had knee surgery and was recovering on the orthopedic floor. “Listen to the sound of the waves and be completely at peace with yourself. Now, visualize a long sandy beach. Walk along the beach and feel the sand beneath your feet.”

Corazzelli continued the imagery, massaging White’s feet and telling her to find a balloon on the beach, fill it with her pain and concerns and release it.

“Watch the balloon take off into the sky, getting smaller and smaller,” she said to White. “You feel lighter, happier and overjoyed.”

As Corazzelli quietly ended the session, White opened her eyes.

“You quit,” she said. “I was going to sleep!”

Corazzelli chuckled. “You see how relaxing it is?”

Corazzelli is one of many L+M volunteers trained in gentle touch and guided imagery, which was designed by the hospital to relax patients and ease their pain.

More than 300 volunteers work at the hospital, assisting staff with such tasks as collecting hygiene data, transporting patients between departments and providing music for patients and their families.

After working as a shipbuilder at Electric Boat for 30 years, Corazzelli joined the volunteer force about a year ago, starting with the refreshment cart, delivering snacks, drinks and magazines to families in the waiting areas.

“I like getting to interact with the people waiting in the waiting area,” she said. “They’re worried about their loved one, and sometimes you just offer them a bottle of water or a snack or whatever or you just talk to them for a few minutes, it helps them and releases the anxiety.”

Even though Corazzelli still begins her shifts with a trip around the hospital with the refreshment cart, her true interest was in L+M’s gentle touch program, and she said she completed the training as soon as it was offered.

“I’ve always been interested in alternative medicine, and I came here to do the gentle touch,” she said.

Corazzelli was a patient at L+M when she had shoulder surgery, and a volunteer did a gentle touch session with her. She said she enjoyed it so much that she decided to give back by becoming a volunteer and doing gentle touch for others.

“It’s amazing because a lot of people are going into a place to get surgery and they’ll be hurting, but by the time I’m done with them, they’re relaxed and they fall asleep, and that tells me that it’s working,” she said. “That’s the best reward, to see people enjoy it.”

Corazzelli makes her rounds in the orthopedic units on the fourth floor every Wednesday. While some patients have her read from her guided imagery script, others spend the gentle touch session talking to her about their rehabilitation experience, the weather, or Corazzelli’s drum circle performances at local nursing homes.

“Some people say, ‘Oh, no, no way,’ so I hold their hand and we talk and they get their gentle touch and they don’t even know that they have,” she said. She said patients will often laugh about it after because they end up enjoying the session even though they declined it at first.

Corazzelli said some are wary when she comes in, but she reassures them that she isn’t there to poke them.

“I let them know that I’m there to make them feel better,” she said.

People interested in volunteering at L+M can contact Jamie Nadeau at 860-442-0711 ext. 2475, and the volunteer services office at Backus can be reached by emailing backus.volunteers@hhchealth.org.