Mall shoppers can help hospice program

Mall shoppers can help hospice program

By G. Michael Dobbs

Managing Editor

HOLYOKE This holiday season having a present wrapped could help a neighbor in a significant way.

On Thursday, the Hospice Life Care program of the Holyoke Visiting Nurses Association (HVNA) started this year's gift-wrapping service at the Holyoke Mall's customer service stand. The money generated at the annual effort helps support the HVNA's effort to provide service to people nearing their end of their lives.

Phyllis Capers, president and CEO of the HVNA, explained to Reminder Publications that the gift-wrapping has been taking place for over 20 years and that all of the money raised goes to hospice care.

Volunteers donate their gift-wrapping expertise, Hampden Paper supplies the wrapping paper free of charge, she said.

Capers said that hospice care shouldn't be seen as a "death sentence." The goal of the program is to allow a patient to "make end-of-life decisions in a comfortable environment."

She said the staff becomes very involved with the patients and their families and that many of the staff members have gone through the loss of a loved one.

Part of the program includes a yearlong bereavement follow-up for the surviving family members.

Mayor Michael Sullivan urged support for the program and said area mayors would join him on Dec. 14 at 11 a.m. to wrap shoppers' purchases. Sullivan warned with a smile that those presents might not be as good looking as the ones wrapped by other volunteers.

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