Category Archives: VNA
Learning the “Language of Dementia”
I always tell people that one magical aspect of working with people with dementia is that you can still communicate, even if the affected person has lost the ability to speak coherently. I think that people with dementia develop a gift, which is the ability to communicate in a nontraditional way. Continue reading
A VNA Hospice Volunteer’s Journey – Part 2
In 2010, Cabot Co-op partnered with AARP Create the Good, Points of Light, media and highly-conscientious companies to establish a fund for an all-expense paid cruise as a way to say thank you to volunteers around the country. This year, celebrities were found from Vermont to Houston, from Orlando to San Francisco. I was one of the 41 who were selected… Continue reading
A VNA Hospice Volunteer’s Journey
“What? Do you really mean it? An all-expense paid cruise to Alaska?” That’s how it all began for me when Roberta McDonald, Senior Director of Marketing for Cabot Creamery Cooperative, gave me the great news. She had just completed the eleven-week training class for hospice volunteers at the VNA that I facilitated. Continue reading
Change in Command
I’m an avid reader of books – fiction and nonfiction – about Navy life in the late 1700′s and early 1800′s. In them are references to vessels’ changes in command. It causes me to wonder about what goes through the mind of the exiting Captain, standing on the quarterdeck watching his replacement being rowed from across the harbor. Continue reading
A Story to Tell
Everyone who comes to live at Vermont Respite House has a story. Maybe it’s a life review they share with a volunteer or staff person as they try to make sense of their lives. Maybe it’s the funny story about the bear in the yard that gets told at every family gathering. Some stories start – and end – here, and will become part of family lore for years to come. Continue reading
A Thousand Words
It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. As you explore our website, you’ll find thousands and thousands of beautiful words expressed about the work we do via powerful imagery displayed throughout our pages. Continue reading
Music at the VNA
I was asked to share a few words prior to the Green Mountain Mahler Festival’s New Year’s Day performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony – recognizable to most of us as the “Ode to Joy” symphony. The second annual celebratory concert again benefited our VNA.
I pondered… how to connect music and our agency? Continue reading
Giving Thanks
It’s been 16 years since our family celebrated Thanksgiving during my father-in-law, Dick Lanou’s, stay at Vermont Respite House. That year, we gathered with other families-essentially strangers bound together by having a loved one at the House. Continue reading
Picking Apples
I have been very fortunate. I grew up in the country with a supportive family. I inherited many values from my parents, perhaps most importantly a strong work ethic. Continue reading
More Than 100 Years of Care
Earlier this month, my wife and I went back to “where it all began” – to New York City’s Henry Street Settlement House. In the early 1890′s, the country’s first public health nurse, Lillian Wald, began her work there serving the tenement neighborhoods of the Lower East Side. She is credited with establishing the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, broadly considered to be the first VNA in the United States. Continue reading