Your Best Friend at Your Worst Time

Avow goes way beyond just hospice. 

Hospice services are the core offering at Avow, and how they got their start. But in addition to classic hospice care, the nonprofit has been providing support to people in Collier County for over 40 years in an astounding variety of ways, helping them through the rough patches and catastrophes we all face. When life seems to be at its worst, Avow can be your best friend. 

One key piece of advice for families dealing with a terminally or seriously ill loved one on how best to utilize Avow services came from Alyson Shultz, volunteer services manager.

“Get Avow involved early, as soon as you can,” she said. “People think hospice care isn’t called for until you’re on the brink of death.” But the organization provides a wide range of services – “at home, here or in a long-term care facility.” 

One who knows fully the value of hospice is Glenna Hayhoe. Glenna founded Avow in 1983 along with her husband Bruce, and now, at age 93, she still comes to Avow every week to volunteer. Making her rounds pushing the cookie cart around the residential facility, she brings a warm smile and a hand to hold to the patients, along with cookies baked on the premises by Chef Linda. In 2023, Glenna was at Bruce’s side when he passed away in the hospice house. 

The caring, empathetic staff at Avow help ease the passage of their patients and the patients’ families through the difficult transitions of life and know what is needed to give comfort, whether it is pain medication, help arranging one’s affairs, or just someone to talk to.

“We focus on quality of life, giving you a better quality of life,” said Renee Stoll, Avow director of communications. “We can offer morphine and meds for pain management, but if you would rather be lucid and deal with the pain, that’s your choice. It’s 100 percent individual care planning.” 

“We are an organization the community depends on for care during the most critical times of life,” said Avow CEO Jaysen Roa. “We know we only get one chance to get it right – and we see that as a sacred calling.” 

Over Avow’s 40-year history, it has grown to be one of the largest providers of hospice care in the country, helping thousands of families each year. There were 2,387 patients admitted into hospice care at Avow in 2023. In that year, 3,375 adults and 242 children benefited from grief support. 

The organization has 275 full-time and part-time staff members, as well as over 120 volunteers, who contributed 17,074 volunteer hours. Avow provided 2,907 visits for palliative care and 6,571 complimentary therapy visits for music therapy, massage therapy, Reiki and other services in 2023.

“We’re not all about numbers, but the numbers signify how much care we provide,” said Roa. “The focus is the needs of the individual patient and Avow does it above and beyond.”

 Death is an inevitable part of each life, a door we will all pass through, and Avow’s matter-of-fact approach and warm personal touch can help families and patients come to terms with the reality of their situation. 

“We try to break down the barriers around talking about death,” said Lea Pascotto, Avow manager of supportive care. “We teach coping mechanisms. We have people go through our program, then come back to volunteer.”

As someone who had a mother and a mother-in-law take advantage of Avow’s services, I can vouch for their caregiving. 

Avow staffers worked with my mother for months at her assisted living facility and moved her to a room at their hospice house overlooking Lake Glenna, named for Glenna Hayhoe, who had been a friend at the end of my mother’s life.

Avow provides hospice care for terminally ill patients, and contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t have to happen in their residential facility – they come to you and bring nurses, palliative medication and emotional support to where the patient lives. They provide non-hospice palliative care, helping relieve pain, fatigue, shortness of breath and many other symptoms to help patients deal with the side effects of medical treatments and improve the quality of life. 

Avow offers support groups for caregivers, open to anyone in the community caring for someone with a serious illness, and helps caregivers find additional resources in the community to provide assistance for them and their loved ones. Avow’s veteran services include matching hospice patients who are military veterans with staff and caregivers who also served and help to connect them with outside veteran services. 

Grief support services are available to all. Avow Kids specializes in bereavement support for children and teens, whether their grief comes from death, divorce, or parents being incarcerated or deported. 

“It helps them to be around other kids who are going through the same kind of experiences,” said Pascotto. Avow also offers support for those who have lost a beloved pet, and even dog-walking service to ease the strain on caregivers. 

Avow’s calendar for April showed over 80 separate group sessions, mostly at their five-acre campus off of Pine Ridge Road in Naples, but some at remote locations. There are group meetings for everything from “Working Through Grief and Loss” and “Rediscovering Life After Grief” to “Support for Current Caregivers,” groups to provide parents with support through the loss of their baby through miscarriage, stillbirth, or newborn death, and “LGBTQ+ Bereavement Support Group,” plus many more, led by trained bereavement team members. 

Avow support groups are open to all, and there is no cost to attend. Most Avow services are covered by Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance, and there is typically no cost to the patient or family. 

“We don’t turn anyone away,” said Stoll. Outreach services are provided in communities including Marco Island, Goodland, Everglades City, Chokoloskee, and even to homeless people living in the woods. 

One of Avow’s most visible outreach programs is the annual Avow Butterfly Release, held each April at Cambier Park for 20 years. At the butterfly release, families and loved ones of the deceased have the chance to sponsor a butterfly and see it released along with over a thousand others when the roof and walls are removed from the big screen house next to the bandshell at the ceremony’s conclusion. 

At the most recent ceremony on April 6, over 650 of the butterflies were sponsored by families to commemorate a loved one. For the emotional climax of the ceremony, a series of speakers read the long list of names of those being honored and remembered. Finally, volunteers carefully peeled the screen panels off the PVC frame, and like the people on the ground, the butterflies headed off into an uncertain but hopeful future.

Fundraising is a constant need. Avow operates Avow Treasures resale shop in North Naples and receives grants from groups, including the Naples Winter Wine Festival. Longtime Marco Island attorney Patrick Neale is the secretary for the board of directors for Avow and the Avow Foundation. Those who contribute their time as volunteers are valued as much as financial donors.

Avow cares not only for those who are terminally ill but also for their families, for those who have serious and chronic illnesses, or who have suffered great loss. 

“You never truly get over the loss of a loved one. But you always have their memories,” said Roa. Speaking of grief, songwriter Willie Nelson put it to music – “it’s not something you get over, it’s something you get through.”

In one form or another, Avow has helped ease the end-of-life experience for thousands in Collier County. To learn more about Avow services, volunteer, or contribute to Avow, call 239-261-4404 or go online to avowcares.org.