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Share the Care: A ministry for caregivers
By John Gleason
Anyone who’s taken on the job of caregiver knows it can be a monumental task. Helping tend to the needs of seriously ill individuals can prove to be downright challenging: doctor’s visits, shopping, making and delivering meals, providing companionship. Caregivers want to be helpful, but at the same time often wish for just a few minutes for themselves to recharge their batteries.
Enter Share the Care, a program created to help support not only caregivers, but to enhance the quality of care that care receivers get. Its mission is to improve the quality of life of people who are seriously ill, disabled or experiencing the challenges of aging as well as reduce the stress, isolation and hardship often suffered by their family caregivers.
A nation-wide organization, the Share the Care program has found a home at Most Precious Blood Parish in Denver. Parishioner Christine Maschka said the 15-year-old organization shows people how to care for others without getting burned out.
“Share the Care was developed by two women in New York who made a journey with a friend of theirs who was diagnosed with cancer and going through treatment until her eventual death,” she said. “The two gathered a support group that could help the sick woman with household needs, driving, preparing meals and whatever else needed to be done.”
Others took notice of the care offered to the cancer-fighting, single parent and asked how the supportive volunteers came together. Out of that came a book, “Share the Care: How to Organize a Group for Someone Who is Seriously Ill,” by the originators, Cappy Capossela and Sheila Warnock. Published in 1995, the book was updated in 2004.
Maschka found out about Share the Care through Denver Hospice and decided to bring the program to her parish.
“It was perfect to reach out to the members or our spiritual community who were in need of assistance,” she said. “In the past two years, we’ve created eight teams for people who’ve been battling medical problems.”
The number of people on a team depends on the need of the family. Maschka said she begins with neighbors, friends and co-workers and has a list of more than 50 parish members who volunteered to be part of this ministry. One of those volunteers is Betty Perkins. She was looking for a way to get involved when she found out about Share the Care.
“I’m working with individuals and on the first team I was on I drove to doctors appointments and acted as a companion,” Perkins said. “All volunteers know that they’re helping someone, but we all get a sense of fulfillment too. More than that, we all become friends. I can’t say enough about this wonderful ministry.”
Beth Faulkner, 35, is married with two children ages 3 and 5. She suffers from hemiplegic migraines, a disease which can bring on weakness of part of the body and in some cases, accompanied by seizures.
“In layman’s terms,” she said, “it appears I’m having a stroke. One side of my body would go paralyzed and I could lose my sight and power of speech.”
Faulkner said that of all the things her Share the Care team did for her, just being around was the best, to be a companion and watch her children.
“These people have proven to be a great resource,” she said. “Caregivers who gave me their time who have become very close friends.”
Through medication that helps keep her condition under control, Faulkner now leads a normal life to the point where the team has disbanded. But they are not forgotten.
“We still get together for lunch or to meet and talk. This program—these people who volunteer for it—are the grace of God personified,” Faulkner said. “They gave me a sense of peace I never had before and made me realize just how many blessings I had.”
For years, Betty and Dick Standiford loved to walk. Not a day went by that they didn’t go out to enjoy the fresh air. But in 2000, Dick Standiford was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and their lives began to change.
“As the disease progressed, my husband and I would come home from a walk and ten minutes later he’d say he wanted to go again,” Betty Standiford said. “I found out about Share the Care through the Alzheimer’s Association and that there was a chapter at Most Precious Blood.”
Standiford contacted Maschka, who put together a team of volunteers who took turns going for walks with her ailing husband. The help enabled Standiford to run errands or to do whatever else she needed to get done while giving her husband the companionship he needed.
“The volunteers provided him socialization, which is extremely important for Alzheimer sufferers,” Standiford said, explaining that as the disease progresses, Alzheimer’s patients become more isolated.
“They’ve helped him in ways he’ll never know,” she said of the Share the Care team.
Today, volunteers continue to visit Standiford’s husband and walk in the courtyard of the assisted living facility where he now lives.
“They were so understanding and encouraging,” Standiford said. “As much as they helped my husband, it was just as much if not more helpful to me. The support the team members have been a blessing and made our journey a great deal easier.”
To date, Most Precious Blood is the only Catholic church in the Archdiocese of Denver that has a Share the Care program. But Maschka is confident that as more people find out about the program, more parishes will want to be part of this ministry.
“Everything they say about ‘many hands making light work’ is correct,” she said. “Share the Care is something that anyone can volunteer for and the benefits are ten-fold.”
SHARE THE CARE
For more information
Call: 303-789-9446
Visit: www.sharethecare.org.
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