Palliative care residence says thanks with video
Volunteers lip-synch song in recording uploaded to YouTube
Since first opening its doors in 2002, the West Island Palliative Care Residence has welcomed close to 2,900 patients in the final stages of life and close to 12,000 of their family members.
This month, the West Island Palliative Care Residence released a special music video to say “thank you” on behalf of those patients and families to the hundreds of volunteers and other supporters who have made the palliative care centre what it is today.
The heartfelt music video features a cast of 60 staff, volunteers and family members lip-synching to a cover of the Natalie Merchant song Kind and Generous. It was uploaded to YouTube in the middle of National Volunteers Week (April 12-18) and at the start of the centre’s new fiscal year.
“We wanted to find a way to thank everybody who helps the centre,” said Joanne Myers, communications director for the Residence. “The song’s lyrics were perfect.”
“This video is our small way of saying thank you to everyone who helps us throughout the year,” said Teresa Dellar, the residence’s cofounder and executive director.
The residence relies on more than 250 volunteers and is largely supported through private donations — $3 million of the centre’s $4.8-million operating budget last year.
Dellar said another objective of the video is to dispel the notion that working in palliative care is depressing and joyless. Many of the activities in the residence are uplifting and full of life.
In the video, many of the staff and volunteers are shown lip-synching as they go about the various things they do at the residence, from reception and patient care, to meal preparation, maintenance and cleaning.
It was all filmed in a day, a Saturday last October, in the residence’s nine-bed facility on André Brunet St. in Kirkland and at its second campus, a 14-bed unit opened in 2012 on the fourth floor of Le Vivalis, a long-term care facility in Pointe-Claire.
Over the past few years, lip-synching videos — known as lip dubs — have become popular community-building tools for non-profit organizations, schools and all sorts of charities.
Myers said the residence’s first was a great experience, “a feelgood story” and, maybe, not its last.