April 2016
FEATURES
The Southwest Portland Post • 5
Bloom Project brightens days for Hopewell House hospice patients
By KC Cowan
The Southwest Portland Post
When a person goes into hospice
care, it can be an emotional, stressful
time for them and their family. At
Hopewell House in Hillsdale, staff and
volunteers help make the transition as
easy as possible.
And quietly, one group has been
brightening that ordeal by donating
floral arrangements every week, for
every patient.
It’s called The Bloom Project, and is
the brainchild of Heidi Berkman, who
in 2007 worked as an event planner
in Bend. She was frustrated to see the
enormous amount of wasted flowers.
At the same time, she had a loved
one in hospice care. Thus, the seeds
were planted for what is now an
organization that utilizes hundreds
of volunteers to sort, arrange, and
deliver beautiful bouquets of flowers
that were destined to be thrown out
to hospice and palliative patients.
In 2012, she brought the project to
Portland.
Berkman said as a country, we do
not like to talk about death, even
with growing awareness of death
with dignity. The word hospice scares
many.
“As a result, we wait to be told what
we can do or when and if we can visit,”
said Berkman. “It is during this time
that patients and their family members
can benefit from the gift of flowers.”
Because patients are often confined
to their beds, arrangements are
compact enough to sit on a bedside
table. Not only is there delight for the
patients when the flowers arrive in
the rooms, Berkman said it also helps
the staff. It lifts their morale and gives
them a positive interaction with their
patients.
“They are no longer the ‘angel of
death,’ but, rather, someone that is
bringing a thoughtful gift of something
colorful, beautiful and alive,” she
explained.
Flowers near the end of their “sellable
life” are donated by flower shops and
grocery stores. Volunteers pick them
up and take them to Teufel Holly
Farms where owner Larry Teufel has
donated space in a greenhouse for The
Bloom Project to use as a workspace.
Then more volunteers sort and deliver
them to hospice homes all over town.
Kathy MacDougal has been sorting
and arranging bouquets for Hopewell
House for three years. She said some
weeks there is a wonderful variety,
and sometimes not so much. They
must also sort and discard the flowers
that are on their last legs.
“And we’re very careful with that,”
MacDougal said. “Because the goal is
to have the bouquets last at last five
days, hopefully more.”
Berkman said The Bloom Project
could not exist without the more
than 300 dedicated
volunteers in Bend
and Portland. “We
have a detailed
training program
that each volunteer
is required to
complete, prior to
volunteering on a
regular basis,” she
said.
“Each person
attends
an
orientation and
introduction to
processing flowers,
then a floral training
session. Following
that, each volunteer
who wishes to work
with flowers will
meet with a mentor
for a minimum of
three mentoring
s e s s i o n s b e f o r e Carol Blanusa (left), volunteer coordinator at Hopewell House
poses with volunteer Kathy MacDougal and that week's flower
graduating.”
The project has delivery. (Post photo by KC Cowan)
grown so much that
bouquets are also made for patients
this bud’s for you!”
who are in palliative care in their own
MacDougal said they routinely
home. Volunteer Chaplain Eric Smith
receive thank you cards from family
picks up flower arrangements for 20 to
members of hospice patients. It helps
25 home hospice patients each week.
reinforce the value of their efforts.
“To see people’s faces—their faces
“I’ve done volunteer work my
light up with joy and they’ll smile,”
whole life and it’s the only thing I’ve
Smith said. And if the patient isn’t
done where it just always feels like it
able to appreciate the blooms, the
is time well spent,” she said. “It’s the
caregivers certainly do. “I like to give
simplest gesture, and yet it means so
them a rose and say: For all you do,
much.”
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