Hospice of Siouxland Offers Vet-to-Vet Program In our Vet ...

[Pages:2]Hospice of Siouxland Offers Vet-to-Vet Program

In our Vet-to-Vet program, volunteers who are military veterans are paired up with hospice patients who have military experience to take time to relate and connect with them. They are able to serve veterans through the challenges they may face from illness, isolation or traumatic life experience. To learn more, please call us at (712) 233-4144.

4300 Hamilton Blvd. Sioux City, IA 51104

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Non-profit locally owned by UnityPoint Health - St. Luke's & Mercy Medical Center - Sioux City

UPCOMING EVENTS

Mending Hearts Luncheon: Persons healing following the loss of a loved one are invited to join us for lunch, 11:30 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 4 at First Lutheran Church, 3939 Cheyenne Blvd., Sioux City, IA. Mike McCormick, Facility Manager of the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center, will be our guest speaker. There's no charge but we ask that you call Al at (712) 2334144 to let him know you will be attending.

Family Grief Support Group: This group for families with grieving children and teens meets 6:30-8 p.m. every other Thursday for six sessions. The next session begins Sept. 8, 2016. Children and teens take part in age-appropriate grief activities while adults discuss their own grief and how to support the youth. Call John at (712) 2334109 to register or for more information.

Grief and Growth: This six-week adult grief support program meets 6:30-8:30 p.m. Tuesdays beginning September 13, 2016 at Hospice of Siouxland, 4300 Hamilton Blvd., Sioux City, IA. Please call 712.233.4144 for details and registration.

Become a Hospice Volunteer! Come to our next volunteer training session 6-9:30 p.m. August 15, 18, 22 & 25 at our South Sioux City, Neb. office. If interested in this or other future volunteer trainings, please call Hospice of Siouxland at 712.233.4144.

Hospice of Siouxland respects your time and privacy. If you no longer wish to receive this newsletter, please e-mail devriesr@

Dear Hospice of Siouxland,

You not only helped my wife when she was very sick with cancer, you helped me as well. You're a great organization and I will always remember the nurses and volunteers who helped us for those few short weeks. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I want to express my appreciation for your support and guidance as you walked with us during the last weeks of mom's life. Our goal was for her to be mentally and physically at peace, and I am so thankful she experienced that. I will forever be grateful for your genuine concern and coordination of her care.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the extra effort you took to arrange your schedule around mine so we could visit mom together at the nursing home. I received such peace of mind and reassurance during those visits.

Mom's care was truly a team effort with you leading the way. I cannot imagine trying to navigate those final weeks alone without your help.

-- A grateful son

FRIENDS OF HOSPICE NEWSLETTER ? 2016

Eugene Kruse holds a bouquet in Hospice of Siouxland's Garden of

Hope at his Le Mars, Iowa, home that he tends for Hospice staff and volunteers to pick to share with patients.

Garden of Hope Shares Nature's Beauty

Not all Hospice of Siouxland volunteers sit at patients' bedsides. Some, like retired farmer Eugene Kruse, serve the organization in much different ways.

A sunny corner of Kruse's Le Mars, Iowa farm is home to Hospice of Siouxland's Garden of Hope, where sturdy coneflowers sway alongside a rainbow of lilies as a brown thrasher sings from a weathered wooden trestle nearby.

While the bird is a summer-long resident, the blooms will be around just until staff and volunteers can gather them into bouquets for patients and their families.

"Our patients' faces light up when we bring them flowers from our Garden of Hope," says Hospice of Siouxland Volunteer Coordinator Val Owens.

"Fresh flowers bring back happy memories for people, whether it be their childhood, or their adult years of tending their own gardens," says Owens. "Patients appreciate that the blooms are locally grown, reflecting the work and care it takes to have a bouquet like this."

This is the eighth summer Kruse has tended the garden. He began the project with encouragement from sister-in-law

Melanie Kruse, a Hospice of Siouxland nurse. The garden is a labor of love for Eugene Kruse -- both for his love of nature, and for the organization that helped care for his parents, Elmer and Leila Kruse, in their final days.

Like any successful farming project, the garden is a year-round commitment. In spring, Kruse is preparing the soil for the growing season. Summer, he's busy tending the plants. And fall is for cleaning up and preparing for snow. In wintertime, he's paging through seed company catalogs, looking for new additions to give away in next year's bouquets.

FRIENDS OF HOSPICE NEWSLETTER 2016

Carla's Corner

by Carla Thompson Director, Hospice of Siouxland

At Hospice of Siouxland, we're making changes so that our caring and compassionate staff can spend less time in front of a computer screen and more time with our patients and their loved ones.

Beginning this

fall, all 70 staff

members who

make patient visits

will have traded

in bulky, outdated

laptop computers

for state-of-

the-art 12-inch

Microsoft Surface Pro 3 tablets. With

Thompson

touchscreen display and the most current

operating system available, these fast and

portable tools will enable our staff to access

and enter patient information more quickly,

leaving more time for patient interaction.

Another perk? They can use the versatile tablets to connect patients with the people they love using video phone calls via Skype. Or they can download music from decades past to play at a patient's bedside to help bring back heartwarming memories.

In hospice and palliative care, as in any aspect of healthcare today, data entry and access are important but often timeconsuming parts of our daily tasks. We can't control that. But we can control the methods we use to do so. By retooling our staff with these tablets, we're giving them more time to focus on Hospice of Siouxland's important mission: providing high quality and compassionate service to relieve suffering and improve quality of life for individuals and their families facing advanced illness, end of life and grief.

Hospice of Siouxland Director Carla Thompson, second from left, joins Siouxland Federal Credit Union President Joel Steenhoven, left, and other Hospice and credit union staff at a check presentation for funds raised at the credit union's 2015 Annual Employee and Volunteer Appreciation Dinner.

Grassroots Support of Area Organizations

Helps Hospice of Siouxland Exceed Expectations

Hospice of Siouxland is able to fulfill its important mission thanks to the grassroots generosity of area residents and organizations like the Siouxland Federal Credit Union, whose employees recently presented the organization with a $3,129 check.

The funds represent proceeds from a silent auction, part of the 2015 annual employee and volunteer appreciation dinner, says Siouxland Federal Credit Union President Joel Steenhoven. "Each year we choose a benefactor for the proceeds, and Hospice of Siouxland was an easy choice," because of a very personal reason, he says: the organization provided "immeasurable support" to his wife, Lori, and their family and loved ones through her illness and passing in March 2015.

"I didn't know the care and compassion the staff had until I actually lived through it with Lori," Steenhoven notes. "I now donate personally to Hospice of Siouxland as I know how it affects families in such a positive way at such a difficult time."

Choosing Hospice of Siouxland to receive the silent auction proceeds brought forth similar stories from credit union staff, he says. "I was surprised to see how great the support was for Hospice of Siouxland and how many families have used the organization in the past," he says. "Many stories came out with how Hospice of Siouxland has helped other employees."

With six offices throughout the tri-state region, the credit union serves Union County, S.D.; Woodbury County, Iowa; Dakota, Dixon and Cuming County, Neb.; and a 10-mile radius of Norfolk, Neb.

"We so appreciate the donation from Siouxland Federal Credit Union," says Tracy Feathers, Director of Marketing and Fund Development. "Hospice of Siouxland relies on the support of the community to make sure our programs and services are available to everyone. As this community's non-profit hospice provider, we go far beyond the care that is reimbursed by Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance. No one is denied care because of an inability to pay."

Individuals or organizations interested in raising funds for Hospice of Siouxland are invited to call Feathers at (712) 252-9426 or e-mail featherst@.

Dueling Pianos Fund Raiser Returns October 21, 2016

Bring yourself, your loved ones and love of music and fun to Hospice of Siouxland's Second Annual Dueling Pianos, an evening of music and laughter for all ages to benefit Hospice of Siouxland.

Designed as a "friend" raiser as well as a fund raiser, Dueling Pianos is Friday, October 21, 2016 at the Marina Center, 385 E. 4th St., South Sioux City, Neb. The evening includes a social hour with heavy appetizers, fabulous raffle prizes and a spectacular dueling pianos show!

Come ready to laugh and cheer as you join in the competitive aspect of the show, which features two piano players trading songs as audience members are pitted against each other in a fun competition. Root for country vs. rock 'n' roll, men vs. women or classic vs. contemporary and more!

Proceeds from the Dueling Pianos event will go toward meeting our mission of providing high quality, compassionate care at the end of life by expanding our dementia program and providing new, complimentary services, including music, pet and aroma therapy.

Tickets to Dueling Pianos are $40 each or a table of eight is $300. For tickets, call Hospice of Siouxland at (712) 233-4144 or go to .

The evening features a social hour and raffle followed by a spectacular dueling pianos show sure to have you laughing, cheering and singing along!

Hospice of Siouxland Partners With `Leave a Message Siouxland'

Persons who name Hospice of Siouxland in a legacy gift are investing in its mission of providing high quality, compassionate care at the end of life for generations to come.

"We're so thankful for the people who include Hospice of Siouxland in their wills, life insurance policies and other planned giving options. These gifts are an inspiration and a testament to the donors' legacy," says Tracy Feathers, Director of Marketing and Fund Development.

To emphasize the value of these inspirational gifts, Hospice of Siouxland is partnering with Leave a Message Siouxland (LAMS), a local awareness campaign to inform and inspire donors to explore the possibilities of including a gift to charity in their estate plans.

"Hospice of Siouxland is proud to be a part of Leave a Message Siouxland and its mission to educate donors about how they can make a lasting difference in their community," says Feathers.

Feathers

As one of nearly 30 partner organizations of LAMS, Hospice of Siouxland is helping inform area residents of how their planned gifts can touch the future. To learn more about LAMS, visit .

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