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Friends of Hospice of the Lakeway Area is conducting a fundraising drive for the Serenity House, while also preparing for its upcoming grief camp.

The nonprofit which is dedicated to providing comfort care for people at the end of life is hosting a new type of fundraiser.

The GEM, Giving Every Month, program allows community supporters to donate money each month to the nonprofit.

Stephanie Hamill, executive director, explained how the organization got the idea automatically.

“So many agencies have fundraisers all the time and so we wanted to decrease the amount of fundraisers we need to have in order to sustain the facility. We also wanted money that we can depend on,” Hamill said. “Since we have added the new Judy McGuffin unit which adds two more beds to our facility, our costs have gone up and we need to have more staff.

“Having this home just means so much to us and having two new rooms, we want to keep full and sustain and again it means more staff.”

Hamill explained how much it costs to meet the daily costs of the facility.

“How our program works, we have a minimum fee of $150 a week for each patient and what that covers is food and electricity,” she said. “However, it costs about an additional $150 per day to take care of each patient.”

The fundraiser utilizes Vanco Payments to collect funding. Donors can input either a checking account or debit/credit card and donations will be taken out each month. A receipt will be sent to donors each time amount is removed.

The starting donation amount is $9.99 and the donors can choose whether they want that amount to be more or the same each month.

“Our goal for the next six months is to have 500 donors at $10 a month. Of course they can give more than that. We have some who are giving $20 a month and then some who are giving $100 a month,” Hamill said. “fifty percent of the funds from the GEM program will go to paying our staff.”

On September 7th Serenity House will celebrate 5 years at its current facility, and which has served 152 people. Hamill explained that the organization needs the community’s support to continue its efforts.

“We just need the help of the community to be able to start sustaining so we are not constantly thinking about what fundraisers we need to do to raise $4,000 or $5,000,” she said. “We hope we can continue to count on the community so we can help those in their last moments of life.”

Although the organization is dedicated to providing care to those for people at the end of life, it also has a camp to help children cope with death of loved ones.

Camp Erin combines grief education and emotional support with fun, interactive activities. It is led by bereavement professionals and caring volunteers.

“Our very first year was in 1999 and it was called Camp HUGS (Healing and Understanding with Grief Support),” Hamill said. “We now call it, for the past two years, Camp Erin,” she said. “We partnered with the Eluna Network in providing this camp which is a national bereavement camp program.

“It is a full weekend camp that starts on Friday and goes through Sunday so the children stay the night for two nights. We have about 50 kids and 50 volunteers and we split the kids up in age groups based on how many kids we have and each group is led by a licensed therapist who volunteers their time.

“Our big buddies, who a majority are college kids that are studying social work or psychology. These students will be working with kids and families who go through grief and this is a great way for them to gain experience that will help them in the future.”

Hamill walked through the weekend and what kids can expect as they attend the camp.

“Friday night is just a fun night full of games and activities,” she said. “Saturday kids participate in a variety of activities such as art therapy, recreational therapy and music therapy. Saturday night we hold a memorial program. Depending on the weather we may do a bonfire and the kids can throw in letters to their loved ones who passed. If the weather isn’t on our side, we will have the children bury their letters under a tree.

“On Sunday morning when the parents come, I hold a session with them and educate them on the signs and symptoms they may see with grieving kids and how to handle that.

“Throughout the weekend we have to share time because we want them to verbalize the person who they lost and acknowledge that loss. We also talk about emotions that go with losing someone, the anger, the guilt and the sadness and how to work through those emotions.”

Hamill explained what kind of loss the kids who attend the camp experience.

“Over the past 10 years we have seen a big increase in children coming who have increased a loss due to drug overdose,” she said. “95% of the kids who come to camp have been affected by a serious sudden death.”

The program is free to kids and donations are accepted to help cover the costs for children to attend the camp.

“It’s a great program and we love to see how the kids transform after camp,” Hamill said. “We follow up with parents and they mention how they see a complete difference in their kids.”

“They’ll tell us how now they can talk about the death, their behavior has changed and that they seem happier.”

For more information about Friends of Hospice of the Lakeway Area, Serenity House, Camp Erin or how to donate, visit its website, call 423-586-5284 or email Fohserenityhouse@gmail.com