{"id":27004,"date":"2020-07-16T17:30:45","date_gmt":"2020-07-16T21:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=27004"},"modified":"2020-07-23T21:14:09","modified_gmt":"2020-07-24T01:14:09","slug":"local-hospice-finds-a-way-through-2020-activity-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/local-hospice-finds-a-way-through-2020-activity-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"Local hospice \u201cfinds a way\u201d through 2020 Activity Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Saying goodbye is always hard, but it was especially\ndifficult for loved ones at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when social\ndistance and restricted hospital visits were the order of the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was particularly true at Newmarket\u2019s Margaret Bahen\nHospice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Margaret Bahen Hospice, a residential hospice serving the\nneeds of northern York Region, along with Doane House Hospice, pride themselves\non easing the transition for more than 100 area residents and their families\neach year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, when they were forced to close their doors to\noutside visitors in March to keep the virus at bay, they needed to get creative\nin providing comfort \u2013 including exploring new ways to bring in family pets to\nsoothe their humans in the final days when relatives were unable to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, Margaret Bahen and Doane House Hospices are asking\nthe community to get their creative juices flowing in ways of giving back \u2013 and\nthe best way to do that might be breaking a sweat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The local hospices have launched The Great 2020 Hospice\nActivity Challenge, a new way to support local hospice care after the pandemic\nforced the cancellation of the annual Hike for Hospice in the spring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea is simple. In lieu of the hike, why not turn\nyour favourite summer activities into a way to support the wider community?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we couldn\u2019t hold the events we were originally\nplanning, we needed to take some different approaches,\u201d says Margaret Bahen\u2019s\nDirector of Care Tamara Hennigar. \u201cSeeing that a lot of our programs had been\nextremely successful going virtual, we thought we could use that same modality\nand use virtual as part of our fundraising mechanism as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since taking their education, counselling and activity\nprograms online, the Hospice says they have seen an increase in participation\nand shifting fundraising in the same direction just made sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe activity challenge is going to be for the whole\nmonth of August and it is a great way for people to do whatever activity they\nenjoy the most \u2013 biking, walking, hiking, swimming, jumping rope \u2013 into a way\nto get active, raise awareness for Hospice and donate,\u201d she says. \u201cIt is a\nreally great way for people to tailor their unique lives and unique enjoyments\nand maybe motivate people to do a little bit more outside and get a little bit\nmore active.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Getting involved is easy. The first step is to register\nonline at myhospice.ca, pick your activities, and show your commitment through\nsocial media where you can then ask for pledges and collect donations from\nindividuals supporting your chosen activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can post and share your activities, engage people in\nfun ways and, perhaps most importantly, share your story \u2013 and each story about\nwhy you support Hospice is unique and personal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hennigar will be taking part in the 2020 Great Activity\nChallenge by spending time in the pool with her family \u2013 swimming in honour of\nher grandmother who died last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Margaret Bahen\u2019s Filipa Tavares will also be doing her\npart. As a dog owner, she is an avid walker and, come August, she will be\nleashing up in memory of several family members who have lost their lives to\ncancer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a way for me and my family to remember them,\u201d\nsays Tavares. \u201cI also want to show how [fundraising for Hospice] impacts the\nwhole community. During COVID, we saw a lot of families unable to say their\nphysical goodbyes and we were still able to provide those \u2018hospice\u2019 moments.\nOne of the things we did is we were able to bring family pets into the facility\nto bring another part of the family to a resident who was dying, even though\nthey were unable to say goodbye to the rest of the family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was a great effort of the team and just seeing how\nthese animals would actually guide us to each of the residents\u2019 rooms was\namazing. It is moments like that that the community doesn\u2019t get to see and I\nthink the public needs to be aware of how Hospice runs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Hennigar\u2019s perspective, one of the big\nmisconceptions about Hospice is that it is a \u201cvery sad\u201d place and that is a\nview that needs to be challenged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople do come here and die and have very sad times, but\nour goal isn\u2019t for it to be sad; it is about living,\u201d she says. \u201cEveryone who\ncomes in, we help them live every moment until they are not living anymore. It\nis important for everyone to understand that, yes, you are losing someone and\nit is very impactful and very sad, but we can help you and your family live\ntogether and live the best you can by doing things like bringing in their dogs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe really do generally live by the word \u2018yes.\u2019 What do\nyou want? We\u2019ll figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adds Filipa: \u201cWe\u2019ll find a way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finding a way, however, takes resources and Hospice hopes\nto raise approximately $85,000 through the 2020 Great Activity Challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnfortunately, due to COVID-19 and not being able to do\nour typical fundraising events, our fundraising dollars have been quite low to\ndate and we have increased expenses with the cost of PPE and increased cleaning\nand increased staffing costs,\u201d explains Hennigar. \u201cWe have had a lot of expenses\ngoing out and very little coming in, which has made it more challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next Week: How COVID-19 changed the day-to-day operations of Margaret Bahen Hospice and how the organization and partners came together to address challenges and find new opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saying goodbye is always hard, but it was especially difficult for loved ones at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when social distance and restricted hospital visits were the order of the day. This was particularly true at Newmarket\u2019s Margaret Bahen Hospice. Margaret Bahen Hospice, a residential hospice serving the needs of northern York Region, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":27009,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/2020-07-16-05.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-71y","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-25 07:36:57","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}