Dear Editor,
Here in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, we’re known for rolling up our sleeves, pitching in for neighbors and showing up when it matters most.
And yet, when it comes to caring for each other at the very end of life, we’re missing something essential.
We have no hospice-specific home in Orleans or Essex Counties — a place designed solely for people in their final days who can’t stay at home, whether due to lack of a caregiver, housing insecurity or the limitations of illness.
That’s why Living Waters Hospice House matters so deeply.
It will be the very first of its kind in our region: a peaceful, home-like space with trained caregivers and volunteers who provide around-the-clock support. Living Waters Hospice House won’t feel clinical or cold. It will feel like home — with two private rooms to start and the potential to grow as our community’s needs grow.
Local VNA hospice professionals will continue providing expert medical care, while Living Waters staff and volunteers offer the presence, comfort and humanity that make all the difference at life’s end.
Living Waters Hospice House is for people like the aging farmer who has outlived his family. It is for the elderly couple who are too frail to care for each other.
Living Waters Hospice House is for the adult daughter working two jobs who wants the best for her mom but can’t be at her side 24/7.
And building Living Waters Hospice House is for all of us who believe no one should face death alone, afraid, or in pain.
Living Waters Hospice House is how we show up — for our neighbors, our elders and, ultimately, for ourselves. It’s a promise that even at the end, compassion will lead the way.
We have the heart. We have the vision. What we need now is the support — financial and otherwise — to make it real. So I invite you to join us. Invest in a home where people can die the way they lived — surrounded by dignity, love and community.
To learn more, visit our website.
With gratitude and hope,
Patricia M Sears
(UVM-certified end-of-life doula at Graceful Transitions and development advisor at the Living Waters Hospice House)
Lowell
