Name: Fran Gillis How long have you been a volunteer? Five years. What areas do you work in/what sort of tasks do you do? Patient care in the Care Center. What made you decide to become a volunteer? I thought when I retired, because I had had so many meetings and things when I was working, that I would volunteer as a speaker for hospice. But then the years went by and so many other things came up and I didn’t. Then my husband became ill, very suddenly, and we had no previous warning. None the less, when they discovered it, because there were no symptoms, he had stage four lung cancer. To make a long story short, after many radiation treatments and a week of chemo, he became bedridden. He couldn’t walk from the summer until he passed away in November. My neighbor had said, “Don’t wait too long to get hospice, I wish I had gotten hospice before for my mother.” When I was bathing Bill, we were both soaking wet, and I thought, I need hospice. So I called Angela Hospice and th...

Click on the image to see why you should start a Walk team! After a couple weeks of it being hot, hot, hot outside it seems we can finally declare that summer is here. As you plan vacations and how much beach time you’ll get, we at Angela Hospice are already looking a few months ahead to our annual fall event, the Walk of Remembrance. This September, we are hoping to exceed our past attendance and host more than 1,000 supporters. The family-friendly walk is a meaningful event for all ages, and we would love for you to consider organizing a walk team.   A walk team is a group of supporters that will help you fundraise and attend the walk, which is scheduled for Sept. 24 at 9 a.m. on the Felician Sisters grounds.  There are all sorts of events you could host this summer to fundraise for your team. For more information please contact our Events Coordinator, Helen Balmforth, at (734) 953-6045 or hbalmforth@angelahospice.us . If you are interesting in forming a team, j...

Name: Mike Dziuban How long have you been a volunteer? Almost three years. What areas do you work in/what sort of tasks do you do? Home care and spiritual care. What made you decide to become a volunteer? Sometimes you just have a feeling. What it was with me was I have a closed-head injury and it took some time to recover. When I did I wasn’t going back to work and I just had this strong desire to volunteer. I actually started doing spiritual care in hospitals about eight years ago, which I still do today. After a while I was interested in Angela Hospice so I started visiting people in their home and I just love visiting the people. Why Angela Hospice? In a hospital they are usually in-and-out,   but at Angela Hospice you’re there for the people, to be with the people, and that’s what got my attention. It was an inner feeling to do this and I don’t know how you explain it. I came down, took the class, and I tried it and loved it. I’ve been doing it ...

By: Dana Casadei Linda Woolard is a woman of many words. Yet, when asked about the Dream Cruise held in her honor on June 3, she had a hard time describing how she felt about the day. “I laughed, I cried, I screamed, I clapped,” Linda said. “I had every emotion you could ever have.” The 65-year-old has attended all 21 Woodward Dream Cruises but recently entered Angela Hospice’s Care Center as a patient. Linda and her friend of 47 years, Christine Cope, both thought that Linda wouldn’t be able to attend this August’s Cruise. So the two women made a plan for their own Dream Cruise, Linda said. They would go for a drive on a really nice day, put the top of Christine’s convertible down, and get some ice cream. It started off as a simple plan. But Christine had bigger ideas. Start Your Engines On June 1, Christine came to visit Linda and told her that she had called 7 Action News about her. WXYZ then got in contact with Cruis’News and shared Linda’s story, which the...

Like the rock band Europe sang, "It's the final countdown." Photo source . The final countdown has begun. We are now in the last week of the Art Van Charity Challenge and there’s one bonus challenge left. Since the Challenge began four weeks ago we’ve raised over $9,100 but we still have work to do to make it into the top ten and win the Art Van grant. Of course all the money we raise will directly help fund Angela Hospice’s compassionate grief support services for children and adults. The final bonus challenge will run until 1:59 p.m. on June 22, which is also when the Challenge ends. Every charity that raises at least $100 this week will be entered for a chance to win $1,000. Every charity that raises at least $400 will be entered for a chance to win $4,000. So your donation can translate into a big prize for Angela Hospice! This is the last week to donate to our CrowdRise page, so please click here, and also share this link with your friends and family: ...

Name: Mike Cuba How long have you been a volunteer? Five years. What areas do you work in/what sort of tasks do you do? Bakes, crochets lap-blankets, home deliveries, teaches Tai Chi classes twice a week, serves on the Ethics committee, and sometimes sings in the choir. What made you decide to become a volunteer? My wife, Jane, has been volunteering here for 20 years. She knits. She’s amazing. She can work with patients, I couldn’t do that. I haven’t got the emotional strength for it. She does home care and she knits lap-blankets. I figured if she can knit them, I can crochet them. I’ve crocheted since I was in college. She does the nice, pretty pastel ones, and I do ones I think I would like more. Different colors, different patterns. Different textures too. I figured you need a little bit of texture, especially if it’s for an ex-military patient. That’s how I got into volunteering. Mike teaches Tai Chi twice a week. What is your favorite part about volunt...

Be sure to tell all your friends and family about the Art Van Charity Challenge! There are only two weeks left of the Art Van Charity Challenge. During the last three weeks of the Challenge we’ve raised over $7,800 thanks to supportive donors becoming fundraisers, sharing our CrowdRise page, and donating money to our cause. Through your generosity more people will be able to receive Angela Hospice’s compassionate grief support services to help them through a difficult time.   And that’s really what this is all about. As we’ve posted before, each week has a unique bonus challenge. Read below for details about this week’s challenge. The fourth bonus challenge will   run until June 16 at 11:59 a.m. The charity that gets the highest number of donations from unique donors this week will receive $4,000. (So donations as small as $10 can make a big difference!) The next five runner-ups will each get a $1,000 Art Van Furniture gift card. So if you know anyone tha...

By: Kate McNamara, Angela Hospice Volunteer Gwen Fedrigo has been a volunteer at Angela Hospice for 28 years and has worked on “Light Up A Life” for all 27 years of the event’s existence. Gwen has been a part of and witnessed the steady and amazing growth of Angela Hospice from its early days and recalls how it initially operated out of a small room at Madonna University. She first learned about hospice when a friend’s husband was receiving hospice care at Providence Hospital thirty years ago. Eventually, Gwen came to learn about and volunteer at Angela Hospice. Gwen is married to Alex and they have five children, twelve grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Alex Fedrigo was President of the Livonia Italian American Club and one year they donated the proceeds from a fundraising fashion show to Angela Hospice. This gave Gwen experience in the art of fundraising and she has honed and perfected her skills in this area to Angela Hospice’s benefit ever since. Gwen (seco...

Bon Jovi's excited, are you? From Flickr Like Bon Jovi sang, “Woah, we’re half way there.” Can you believe we’re already entering the third week of the Art Van Charity Challenge? We sure can’t. In just two weeks we’ve already raised over $5,000, which is a little over a third of our $15,000 goal. Last week we mentioned that this challenge is unique in a few different ways, one of the biggest being that each week has a different weekly bonus challenge. This week’s challenge runs until 11:59 a.m. on June 9. Every charity that gets at least five donations this week will be entered for a chance to play Rock, Paper, Scissors. The winner will get $3,000 to support their charity. So please keep sharing our CrowdRise page with all your friends and family, donating online, and becoming fundraisers. Here’s the link: https://www.crowdrise.com/ahhc-artvan2015 Also, if we do get chosen to play Rock, Paper, Scissors, which do you think we should choose? If you’re ...