(Text and Photos by Pete Porter)
| The next time you go to the Rolling Hills Cinema Complex, take a look to the left just before you go inside. You will see a large three story red brick building there with a very impressive landscaped entrance. The "Trinity Care Hospice Foundation" occupies a suite in this building and some of our RSVP volunteers perform a much needed function for them several times a year. This month I met with the Executive Director of the Hospice, Teresa Bond, while RSVP volunteers Carol Johnson, Nita Wilmarth and Rosie Macardo, assisted several other helpers put together mailings for their next function - the "Rio Carnival". | |
Teresa Bond informed me that the Trinity Care Hospice was established in 1977 by Claire Tehan of Hospital Home Health, and is the oldest and largest nonprofit hospice in Southern California. It was the first hospice in California to get a State License and was the first to take in AIDs patients. It is the only Pediatric Hospice in our area; one of only three in the State and twenty five Nationwide. The building itself is owned by philanthropists Norman and Carol LaCaze, who have helped over the years with the operation of the the Hostice and the Foundation. Trinity Care Hospice also has similar offices in Mission Hills and Cerritos and all these cover an area from Southern Ventura through Northern Orange County.
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Carol, Nita and Rosie are three of several RSVP members that help this nonprofit organization in their fund raising activities, mainly by putting together the mail packages to publicize the various fund raising activities that the Foundation runs throughout the year. Teresa told me that right now there are two major events taking place in the South Bay. One of these is a food and wine tasting gala called "Sunday by the Sea", that takes place on the Peninsula at the house of Carolyn and Julian Elliot. Each year this event is attended by 700-800 people, is catered by up to twenty five restaurants and wineries and publicized in various local newspapers and magazines such as the Daily Breeze, PV News and Chamber of Commerce flyers.
Teresa mentioned that another event used to take place on Academy Awards Night but this has now been replaced by the "Rio Carnival". This is a Brazilian fund raising party that will take place in February at the Manhattan Beach Marriot. On the day I was there, one of the rooms in the office complex was filled with a group of volunteers hard at work putting together mail-out packages for this event, our three RSVP members amongst them. A total of around 4,700 mailings would be going out for the Carnival. However, this is a small number when compared to the "Light Up a Life" campaign that takes place before Christmas each year. A total of 16,000 mailings are put together for this particular event as part of the "National Hospice Month" campaign. Among other items, the mailer includes a star to be sent back with each donation and each of these go to help fill up a tree in the Hospice lobby.
Among other activities, Trinity Care Hospice runs a drop-in and referral center called "The Gathering Place" for counseling of anyone who might be going through a bereavement. During each Christmas period they also run an "Adopt a Family" program serving over 200 people in the community. The Trinity Care Hospice Foundation is located at 2601 Airport Drive, Suite 230 and can be contacted by phone at (310) 257-3541. The Foundation works closely with the local community and concentrates on providing in-home care as a way of allowing Hospice patients to maintain their quality of life. This is particularly true when it involves the younger generation. However, they also take care of patients in Nursing Homes, such as "The Canterbury" in Palos Verdes, on an individual basis.
As a non-profit organization, Trinity Care Hospice, is open to any volunteer participation that is offered. So, if you are interested in this type of activity, please be sure to contact the RSVP office at (310) 320-3322.