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Hospice of Martha's Vineyard is one of a very few organizations of its kind anywhere in the United States that operates entirely without funding support from either government or private health insurance companies. In this era of burgeoning health-care bureaucracy, Hospice is something of a maverick, but this strategy isn't about an organizational fear of paperwork. Much of the funding available to a group like Hospice comes with strings attached, and those strings can end up hampering the agency's helping work. Hospice keeps its work simple, because its mission is simple: providing free Palliative care for life-limiting illness and Grief Support Services care to patients and their families on the Island. The price that Hospice of Martha's Vineyard has always paid for keeping itself unfettered and free to provide the very best and most responsive care to patients and their families - the services they need, when they need it, the way they need it - has always been the burden of raising funds to make the agency's continued work possible. In 2002 came news that the ongoing good work of Hospice received a boost of unprecedented generosity, with the gift of $1.8 million to its endowment fund from the estate of the late Katharine Graham. This caring gift closes an endowment fund drive that began four years ago, and because it goes to create a fund whose principal will never be touched, it will go on helping Vineyarders in perpetuity. But Katharine Graham's gift does not mean that the fund-raising efforts of Hospice of Martha's Vineyard are done, or that the need for community support is obviated. Hospice runs on a budget of a half-million dollars a year, all but six per cent of which goes to the organization's caring mission. The generous gift from Mrs. Graham's estate will not end, but will greatly ease the burden of the annual fund-raising challenge at Hospice. And that means Hospice of Martha's Vineyard will be able to maintain its focus, continuing a tradition of caring that contributes immeasurably to the quality of life in this Island community.
Reprinted with permission of the Vineyard Gazette. 2002
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