Many of us have had personal experiences with hospice, a type of end-of-life care that focuses on the alleviation of a terminally ill patient’s symptoms. The hospice system, which provides services based on federal regulations and guidelines, serves an estimated 1.6 million Americans living with life-limiting illness each year.
Patients can be in hospice care for any number of reasons, including cancer, end-stage heart and lung diseases, stroke, renal failure or Alzheimer’s disease. Although most hospice patients are in treatment for fewer than 30 days, care may extend beyond six months.
November is recognized as National Hospice and Palliative Care Month. The purpose is to encourage people to increase their understanding and awareness of end-of-life care. Through hospice, medical and social services are supplied to patients and their families by an interdisciplinary team of professional providers and volunteers who take a patient-directed approach to managing care.
More than 355,000 trained volunteers contributed 16 million hours of service to hospice programs nationwide last year. Volunteers are vital to hospice programs and many people find their service – ranging from patient-centered to non-patient activities – to be extremely rewarding.
Volunteers can fill the gap between loved ones and professional caregivers, providing companionship and support during a difficult time. There are a number of Central Oregon-based hospice and palliative care programs that are continually looking for volunteers, including Partners In Care, Hospice House, St. Charles Hospice, St. Charles Palliative Care Program and Heart ‘n Home Hospice.
For those looking to support hospice’s mission without direct patient interaction, which can sometimes prove difficult given the emotional toll, there are a number of opportunities to explore third party supporting organizations, like The Bloom Project.
Founded in 2007 in Central Oregon, The Bloom Project is a volunteer-driven nonprofit that provides fresh floral bouquets to hospice and palliative care patients to brighten their physical – and emotional – spaces. The Bloom Project receives each of its flowers from donations provided by floral distributors, local stores, community members and special events. The flowers are repurposed by volunteers into beautiful bouquets ready to deliver to local hospice and palliative care patients. The Bloom Project has distributed more than 112,369 bouquets with more than 40,000 donated volunteer hours since 2009.
By volunteering with a hospice-related organization, you can gain a great personal satisfaction from knowing that you have made an impact in another person’s life and in your community.
Having spent 23 years in the event planning industry, Heidi Berkman encountered a great deal of floral waste. As she saw a loved one being cared for by hospice, she leveraged her philanthropic spirit, bringing together these two experiences in creating The Bloom Project, an organization that donates fresh bouquets of flowers to hospice and palliative care patients, demonstrating beauty, giving and joy during end-of-life care.
