How Your Giving Helps

How Your Donations Touch Our Patients

By Susan Levine
Executive Director
Hospice of the Valley

From our beginnings as an all-volunteer organization, we have relied on the generosity and kindness of our community members. You make it possible for us to provide the “extras” not covered by Medicare or insurance and to care for those without insurance or ability to pay. Last year charity care totaled $13 million.

Here’s how your donations have touched our patients: a 62-year-old man who lost his health insurance when he was laid off – then was diagnosed with late-stage cancer – got our services at no cost to him; a dying military veteran with post-traumatic stress syndrome was treated to relaxing massages; a family that didn’t have bedding for their children in the winter was provided with blankets and linens.

Those are but a few examples of the hundreds of people who have been comforted because of your gifts. Thanks for all you do to support our mission.

Helping Hand Fund Makes Magic Happen

Kevin Pratt-King was headed toward a career in architecture when an aggressive form of brain cancer changed everything for the young man. He quit his studies at Arizona State University, underwent surgeries and treatment, and ultimately came on Hospice of the Valley’s service in January.

Now life for Kevin and his wife Tashi is about the small pleasures, like going to a Broadway musical. In March, the couple experienced one of theater’s best, thanks to the tenacity of Hospice of the Valley staff and the Helping Hand Fund.

Mimi Carrion-Loucks, clinical resource social worker, scored two impossible-to-get tickets to “Wicked” for $200, paid for by the fund. The couple enjoyed an evening at ASU Gammage and celebrated an early third wedding anniversary. Both longtime theater buffs, they lost themselves in the amazing sets, music and performances.

"Just to experience it washing over me, to forget about things for a while and enjoy it…it was a good way to spend an evening," said Kevin, 27. "It was one of the best evenings I’ve had in a long, long time."

Hospice of the Valley's Helping Hand Fund has been assisting patients and families since 1998, covering non-medical urgent needs, such as overdue utility payments or funeral expenses and also granting special wishes.