Valley couple falls in love while volunteering at local hospital

PHOENIX (FOX 10) - In this week's Community Cares, one Valley couple found love in the most unlikely place at the most unlikely time.

They spend four hours a week volunteering at Banner Baywood Hospital and four more hours a week at Banner Gateway Medical Center in Gilbert.

Their work is important to Bernie and Rosalie. It holds special meaning because it's how they met.

"We had moved out here and once I was alone I kind of went into a cave, like puff the magic dragon, and it was my brother, a doctor in Ohio, who said get up and go volunteer they would love you at your hospital, so I came to Banner Baywood and that was in October of 1999 and then in March of 2000 I met Bernie Miller from Minnesota," explained Rose.

"I kept coming down, I went home at the end of my shift it was the start of her shift and I walked by that desk how many hundreds of times between the time she got there and the time you stopped, six months later, I all of the sudden stopped there and introduced myself," explained Bernie.

Bernie was divorced when they met, and Rose had just lost her husband. The two started emailing, then dating, and just months later they were married.

"Every time we volunteer we go together, same shift," said Bernie.

They'll be married 19 years this July. Making time for each other is a priority, but volunteering, giving back, going back to the place they met, keeps them smiling.

"I don't know I think it just happens, sometimes stuff like that does just happen because I had met a lot of people between the time I was divorced and four years later and I never was interested in anyone else until I met her, it was a spark I think that was there and ignited," said Bernie.

Bernie is 88 and Rose is 85.