By Jeff Sikorovsky
Next year, HospiceCare will begin celebrating 40 years of service to West Virginia families during their times of greatest need, providing peace, comfort and dignity to all. What started as five volunteers along with their friends and families chipping in $500 to care for just seven Charleston-area patients in 1979 has grown into a $25 million health care organization with 300 employees and 300 volunteers serving more than 3,000 patients of all ages and their families throughout 16 counties in south central West Virginia.
Keith Stonestreet
Raising Funds, Changing Lives
Nearly 20 years ago, after hearing touching stories from families who have benefitted from HospiceCare’s services, Keith Stonestreet, owner of the insurance brokerage firm Stonestreet Associates, started a golf outing and cocktail party with a few of his friends. They put their money together and raised $7,000 for HospiceCare. Today, that simple event has evolved into something much bigger.
The 8th annual HospiceCare Golf Outing & Dance Party will take place on Friday, September 14 at Edgewood Country Club in Charleston. Each year, more than 100 golfers hit the course at Edgewood while more than 250 people attend a dance party that night at the club to benefit the work of HospiceCare.
In its first seven years, the Golf Outing & Dance Party has raised more than $630,000, making it the agency’s signature event to benefit patients and families. The event’s goal is to raise a total of $1 million by its 10th year in time to help celebrate HospiceCare’s 40th anniversary in 2019.
“Hospice is probably the best nonprofit organization in Charleston,” says Stonestreet. “At the end of the day, they help the people who can’t help themselves, and they give support during that tough period. I don’t just know it’s a good function, I believe in it. I’m committed to making something that gives back to the community. There’s passion out there. There are people who are willing to go that extra mile. I’ve never heard anyone say anything bad about hospice. That’s a compliment to them as an organization. I think the community is very receptive of them because of what they do.”
Creating a Legacy
In the 20 years since this fundraiser began, HospiceCare has served 34,000 patients and their loved ones, growing its admissions each year. With a better understanding of hospice, palliative and bereavement care, the state’s population is steadily seeing the benefit of quality end-of-life comfort care and everything that it entails.
Photo by Jeff Sikorovsky/HospiceCare
HospiceCare comes directly to the patients, serving people where they are, whether it is at home, in a nursing home or assisted living facility or an in-patient hospice facility. While many West Virginians tend to take care of their own, HospiceCare provides programs and services that allow them to better do that. Hospice is about living each day as best as possible.
Taking an interdisciplinary approach to care, HospiceCare’s team of doctors, nurses, social workers, CNAs, counselors, chaplains and volunteers work with each patient’s primary care physician and family to manage their physical symptoms as well as their psycho-social, emotional and spiritual needs. HospiceCare’s Palliative Care Center, Wallace Grief Support and Bereavement Center and Camp Mend-A-Heart are all part of this diverse approach to care and support.
The coming year will also be a celebration of Charleston native Larry Robertson’s 20th year as HospiceCare’s executive director. Robertson has overseen the development of three in-patient hospice facilities with a total of 44 private rooms—Hubbard Hospice House, Hubbard Hospice House West at Thomas Memorial Hospital in South Charleston and Peyton Hospice House in Lewisburg—and HospiceCare’s new main office on Charleston’s West Side.
Photo by Jeff Sikorovsky/HospiceCare
“I really don’t need any recognition. It has always been a team effort, not about any individuals,” says Robertson, who is always proud of the accomplishments of the board, staff, volunteers and community efforts.
This team approach has helped double the agency’s annual admissions, daily census and work force over the past two decades, all the while making sure the quality care of patients and their families comes first, regardless of the ever-changing needs of the community.
It is the philosophy and mission of HospiceCare that all who meet the requirements for hospice receive care regardless of their ability to pay. As most of its revenues come from Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, HospiceCare is dependent upon volunteers, community support and events like the annual golf outing and dance party to fill the funding gaps and benefits from several volunteer-driven fundraisers each year.
About the Author
Jeff Sikorovsky is the marketing director for HospiceCare. Before joining HospiceCare in 2006, he worked as a journalist for 10 years, including as a copy editor for the Charleston Daily Mail and assistant editor and reporter for Sun Newspapers in his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. Sikorovsky lives on the West Side with his fiancée, Sara Green Hughes.
