Homer Hospice celebrates 25 years

• Organization grew from grass roots to serve hundreds

By Naomi Klouda
Homer Tribune

Darlene Hilderbrand

Maryland doctors sent Jean Hatfield’s mother-in-law home from the hospital in November of 1983, telling her she had about 24 hours to live. Her breast cancer had progressed rapidly.
Hatfield and her husband, Rick Callis, turned her living room into a bedroom for Eileen Callis, and tried to make her as comfortable as possible.
“She got up and was walking around. She ate well,” Hatfield recalled. “She actually lived five more weeks. I felt the reason she improved and did so much better was because she was at home.”
Hatfield also credited Hospice for their help in providing support and ideas — as well as friendship.
When Hatfield returned to Homer, she felt inspired to see what it would take to start a Hospice of Homer. She was convinced of the good it would do in prolonging the lives of those facing terminal illness.
The organization was young, even on the East Coast. Homer resident Marilyn Dugdale — whose father was instrumental in establishing one of the first Hospice programs in the United States in the 1970s — joined forces with Hatfield. Together, they operated a fledging Hospice from their homes. Dugdale, 25 years later, remains a loyal Hospice financial supporter and her memory, along with Hatfield’s, is the group’s archive.
“I had an IBM Selectric typewriter, and I remember writing 50 letters to local businesses,” Hatfield said of those beginning days. “I sent them to everyone I could think of.”
Donations started coming in, the first one arriving from a young chiropractor named Jim Heston. Brother Asaiah, the famed Bare Footer, spoke to the Homer City Council in support of Hospice after a presentation by Hatfield and Dugdale asking for city seed money.
Sharon Whytal, at the time a young nurse at South Peninsula Hospital, heard about Hospice. She, along with other nurses, began to refer patients to the organization. It was the mid ‘80s, and Homer didn’t yet have a home-health program at the hospital.
“We had a lot of people who didn’t need to be hospitalized, they just needed some help staying where they live,” Whytal said. “They needed the physical and emotional support for a husband, or parent or loved one.”
With so many forces working together, Homer Hospice became fully established in 1985, serving six people in their first incorporated year. A few years later, they hired their first director in Judy Calhoun.
“It was gratifying how quickly people embraced Hospice without knowing anything about it,” Hatfield said. “That means a lot to me. I want to send a personal thank you to the entire community because they embraced it, they helped it grow. And look where we are now.”
Executive Director Darlene Hildebrand, at work for more than a decade in Homer, said the organization served some 52 end-of-life clients in 2009 alone. They also served 226 family members, and helped 199 bereaved clients. The organization also has a revolving medical equipment loan program that served nearly 600 people, loaning out everything from crutches to shower chairs to medical beds.
In order to produce those numbers through the years, Hospice had to train about 500 volunteers, asking each of them for a commitment of 2-4 hours per week for a year.

Eileen Callis and Jean Hatfield

From March 5-23, a new round of Volunteer Visitors and Phone Friend Training Programs will be offered at the Friendship Terrace. The workshops are key to gaining, training and preparing volunteers who help the “frail and isolated” in the community. The group says they can always use more, so that no new clients are turned away due to a lack of helping hands.
“At the workshops, you learn new tools for communication,” Hildebrand said. A separate group of volunteers work with the dying and receive another set of workshops in October.
“Being with someone in transition is a gift. We are all going to face death, the death of a friend or loved one. This is an amazing end to the chapter of life, and it is as natural as childbirth,” she said.
Hospice ideals are to provide comfort, dignity and choice to those facing end-stage illness and the transition process of dying. Today’s volunteers in Homer are assisted on the medical side by South Peninsula Hospital’s Home Health Department.
“This comes from an old-fashioned idea that people stayed at home. In rural parts of the country, women gave birth to their babies at home — and parents died at home,” Hildebrand said. “Now, there are a lot of choices. Hospice helps by being available in whatever circumstance you need it.”
Hospice operates on two part-time staff, including Hildebrand. The Homer Foundation supplies some grant money from the City of Homer, and less than 3 percent of Hospice money comes from government. The rest comes from donations, fundraising and the United Way. Currently, the largest need is for monetary donations in order to keep a part-time administrative staff in the coming year, once grant money runs out. Hospice complies with state and federal guidelines, necessitating compliance paperwork be completed.
This 25th anniversary year, watch for Hospice events such as a community wide celebration to thank community members and a July golf tournament in Anchor Point.