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Mazel
Toy!

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Spreading
the Word

Hospice of Michigan's 17th annual
Crystal Rose Ball honors community
`doers" while raising $215,000.

SHARON LUCKERMAN
Staff Writer

aurice Pogoda of Ftanklin will never
forget the special way a hospice
provider comforted his father when he
was dying of cancer.
"My father was very concerned about my sister,"
Pogoda says.
The provider encouraged his sister to tell her father
she would be fine and that it was OK for him to die.
"The whole experience," Pogoda says, "gave my
father the freedom to pass away in peace." .
On April 13, Pogoda and his wife, Lori, along with
Nancy and Harold Varner of Detroit, were honored as
Outstanding Volunteers at Hospice of Michigan's 17th
annual Crystal Rose Ball at the New Detroit Science
Center.
Maurice Pogoda is a member of the HOM
Foundation Board, chairing the donor recognition
committee. Lori chairs the HOM Women's Council.
They both have been involved with Hospice for many
years.
Harold Varner is architect for the new HOM corpo-
rate headquarters in Detroit's Brush Park. He serves on
the HOM board. ?
HOM, formed in 1994 from the merger of 10 corn-
munity hospice programs, strives to ensure a comfort-
able, peaceful death and outreach for survivors. Services
include physical, emotional and spiritual support for
patient; grief support for family and friends; the services
of trained volunteers and financial assistance.
For Jewish News publisher Arthur M. Horwitz,
honored as Outstanding Individual at the event, it
also took the loss of a family member to bring the
importance and value of end-of-life care into focus,
he says.
"My sister-in-law passed away from cancer in her
early 40s, leaving behind four children and a hus-
band," says Horwitz.

His brother, a
nationally known
oncologist in
Cincinnati, provides
medical services to hos-
pice facilities. His
work, Horwitz adds,
"was touching and
inspiring for me."
So when HOM approached Horwitz
with data indicating the Jewish commu-
nity was under-represented as hospice
clients in Detroit and asked him to chair
its Jewish Community Advisory Board,
he agreed.
The initial misperception about hos-
pice is that it is about giving up,"
Horwitz said. "Really, it is about provid-
ing dignity, pain management, sensitivi-
ty to religious needs and closure with
one's family and friends," he says.
"Death is an inevitability, not an option.
Hospice integrates this inevitability with
the rhythms of everyday living.
"So many of our tradition's teachings,
focus on the value of life, the choosing
of life, the saving of a life as the equiva-
lent of saving the world. The recent
quote of a Hezbollah terror chieftain in
the Washington Post that homicide
bombings are effective because 'Jews
love life more than any other people'
underscores this."

Above:
Lori and Maurice
Pogoda of Franklin
receive their
volunteer award
from Dorothy
Doremo, head
of Hospice
of Michigan.

Right: Jewish News
publisher Arthur
Horwitz receives
state recognition
of his Hospice of
Michigan award
from State Rep.
Mark Shulman,
R-West Bloomfield.

Education Brought Patients

.

The committee mounted an educational campaign to
better inform the Jewish community and the physi-
cians who cared for them. The campaign included
running "advertorials" in the Jewish News.

Hospice listened and changed some of its literature,
such as eliminating photos that had a cross in them
because they were not appropriate for a Jewish audi-
ence. Staff also was hired to assist the Jewish commu-
nity, such as Oak Park Rabbi E.B. "Bunny"
Freedman, who now heads the Jewish Hospice and
Chaplaincy Program, and caregiver Roberta Blitz of

4/26
2002

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