Just over $29,500 was amassed at the third annual Remember Me event, a local fundraiser that invites attendees to pause and reflect on the loved ones they have lost.
Held on Friday, September 26 at Wine X Sam for canapés and the Seymour Racing Club, for food, wine, music and fun, this year’s event boasted a huge list of local sponsors and a large rate of attendance.
The sizeable amount raised on the day was officially presented to the Lower Hume Palliative Care team at Seymour Health on Tuesday, December 9.
Seymour Health chief executive Ward Steet thanked the committee members in attendance for choosing to support the service again this year and said the funds would be used to boost the hospital’s volunteer base, as well as the palliative care program.
“We’re hoping to, with your permission, use some of the funds to actually revitalise the (volunteer) program and try to attract more volunteers into palliative care,” Mr Steet said.
“I think these funds will prove to be really invaluable to support our palliative care staff.”
Seymour Health nurse unit manager Paula Sutherland said the investment would support Seymour Health to deliver dignity therapy through having a dedicated staff member to speak with the person in palliative care about their life and what mattered most to them, which would then be turned into a document provided to that person’s family.
“Dignity therapy is a process created to help conserve the dying patients’ sense of dignity by addressing sources of psychosocial and existential distress,” she said.
“It gives a person a chance to record the meaningful aspects of their lives and leave something behind that can benefit their loved ones in the future.
“This funding would be used to send (a staff member) to the dignity therapy course and then for their time to work with our patients ... while creating the lasting legacy document.”
While the event, which first ran in 2023, began by supporting Breast Cancer Network Australia, Prostate Cancer Network Australia and Childhood Cancer Australia, Remember Me committee members Linda Williams and Susie Lubeck said it made sense to again support the local palliative care team this year.
“Many of us on the committee have been touched by palliative care — more than a few times for some of us — so it’s something that we’re really passionate about,” Ms Williams said.
“We’re very proud of what we’ve achieved and, hopefully, we’ll continue to do so.”
Ms Lubeck said they also wanted to invest the funds into a local service.
“I think it was just very important for us to keep our funding local,” she said.
“There were a few people who travelled to come to our event but, again, they’d probably been touched by the need of palliative care, or wished, maybe, that they had better services in their area.
“We can’t tell you how many people said to us that it was so good hearing how the funds were spent last year.”
After expressing his gratitude to the committee members, Mr Steet also thanked the staff in the room during the presentation.
“I’d like to thank all the staff here that put in lots of time to palliative care. You guys are incredible,” he said.
“I don’t know how you do what you do, but it’s an exceptionally important service to our community.”
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