Wine Taste to benefit Hospice
“Everyone’s life is touched by cancer today,” says Alison Pollard, this year’s volunteer chairwoman of the 21st annual Hospice of North Idaho Wine Taste and Auction. “Since I am unable to help with care giving, I do what I can to help raise the necessary funds to fulfill the Hospice mission.”
Pollard, a commercial loan officer and a local bank vice president, has lost family to cancer and feels strongly about Hospice’s role. She has been fund-raising for Hospice since 1994, working her way through various committee responsibilities. Pollard was event co-chairwoman of the Wine Taste in 2004 and 2005.
This year’s Wine Taste will be next Saturday at the Hayden Lake Country Club. Tickets cost $95 per person and include food, wine and a bid number for the live and silent auction items that include trips, artwork, dinners and jewelry.
Hospice of North Idaho is a nonprofit, Medicare-certified hospice serving Kootenai, Benewah, and Shoshone counties. It was created in November 1981 and is governed by a community board of directors.
Hospice services are designed for persons with a life-threatening illness who have begun the palliative stage of their illness. It is a model of health care that provides physical, emotional, and spiritual care to patients and their families, and is designed to treat the whole person so they may live life fully, maintain dignity and retain personal control. Hospice serves persons of any age with any life-limiting illness, including cancer, cardiac disease, renal disease, neurological illnesses, Lou Gehrig’s disease, AIDS, cirrhosis, leukemia and pulmonary disease.
Service is provided regardless of reimbursement or the ability to pay. Care is provided in the patient’s own home, an assisted-living home, a skilled nursing facility or a hospital.
Referrals may come from the attending physician, immediate family or the patient. Hospice staff will contact the attending physician to complete the referral process.
The Wine Taste fund-raiser accounts for more than one-fourth of Hospice’s total support income, says Paul Weil, Hospice executive director.
This support income is needed because the money that Hospice receives from Medicare and other insurance companies doesn’t cover all the costs for providing medical and bereavement services to people with life-limiting illnesses and their families.
As the North Idaho community has grown, there has been a continued need to expand Hospice services, according to Weil.
In 2005 Hospice served more than 600 families, as well as approximately 509 bereavement families after the death of a loved one. Approximately 15 percent of Hospice’s bereavement clients came from community referrals. “Besides using support funds to help cover the cost of services for individuals who may not have any insurance coverage, funds are used to help expand our program to meet the needs of the community,” Weil says. “For example, Hospice would like to hire a full-time chaplain to supplement its team of volunteer chaplains to ensure that patients and families are receiving the spiritual care that they need.”
Other important areas are the development of a special team of Hospice employees who would work with assisted-living facilities and nursing homes, and the expansion of the Hospice children’s grief program.
“This community is amazing.” Pollard says. “The restaurants and wineries donate time and product, the Hayden Lake Country Club donates the space, and Hospice has so many devoted supporters who continue to support the Wine Taste and Auction year after year.”
Other Hospice of North Idaho Wine Taste volunteer committee members include Monica Dietrich, June White, Nicole Thiel, Brenda Bull, Dean Opsal, Mark Daanen, Connie Farnsworth, Cathy Minor and Sandra Hayes.
Tickets are on sale and donations are still being accepted for the Hospice of North Idaho Wine Taste and Auction next Saturday, at the Hayden Lake Country Club. For more information, contact the Hospice office at 772-7994.