Volunteers’ Hospice Work Garners Award National Honor Remembering Jessica Mcclure, The Rescued Texas Toddler, Goes To Tri-Cities

The Tri-Cities is the winner of a national award for outstanding volunteer efforts.

The Midland Community Spirit Award is given each year. The award was established in memory of the 1987 rescue of Jessica McClure, a Midland, Texas, toddler who was saved by community action after she fell into an abandoned well.

This year’s award recognized the thousands of people, businesses, unions and government agencies that donated time, supplies and money to build the Tri-Cities Chaplaincy Hospice House and Counseling Center.

The building gives dying people a dignified place to spend their final days with family and friends.

The nomination was made by hospice volunteer Glenna Hammer Moulthrop of Richland. She was called Friday morning by the Midland Reporter-Telegram, the newspaper that sponsors the contest.

“How appropriate that the community has won a spirit award, because it’s really about this community’s spirit and how generous and giving the people here are,” Moulthrop said.

The Hospice House is in Kennewick, on land donated by First Lutheran Church. The Tri-Cities Chaplaincy raised $650,000 for building supplies and furnishings. The mortgage-free building is valued at $1.2 million.

About 3,000 people donated at least 25,000 hours of volunteer labor to raise the 9,000-square-foot building. It took 27 months to build, with the dedication ceremony in November. There have been 39 patients so far.

The house has six patient rooms and two living room areas, where people can spend the last weeks of their lives in homey surroundings. The building also has offices and meeting rooms for counseling and chaplaincy services. Rooms are vacant only when a patient dies. Then, for 24 hours, a candle shines in the room so family and staff can grieve.

The Tri-Cities Chaplaincy was one of about 55 nominees for the spirit award.

The Midland Reporter-Telegram published summaries of the three finalists. The Texas city’s residents voted for the winner.

Of the 1,147 votes cast, 595 were for the Hospice House, 314 were for Forsyth, Ga., and 238 were for Glenwood Springs, Colo.

The Georgia community helped about 600 teenagers abandoned there by a company that had promised them work at the summer Olympics.

For six days, the town’s residents provided food and shelter, and raised money to send the teens home.

In Colorado, the community built a monument in memory of 14 smoke jumpers who died while fighting a forest fire.