Serenity Hospice & Home at its best helping families with end of life
Retired Serenity Hospice & Home Executive Director Lorrie Bearrows said it was over 20 years ago when tragedy struck an Ogle County couple in their home.
“The husband had a heart attack in the middle of the night and died on the floor of his bedroom with his wife sleeping 20 feet away,” she said.
It was right then and there that Bearrows said to herself, “‘There has to be a better way that we can support them and care for them and not have the wife spend the rest of the days that the Lord has giving her seeing her husband on the floor.'”
That event, Bearrows said, was the impetus behind a $3.9 milliom fundraising campaign to build a stateof-the-art in-patient care facility where around-theclock hospice care is provided.
In recognition of their services, Serenity Hospice & Home at 1658 Illinois 2 in Oregon, received one of four inaugural Community Champion Awards presented last month at the Excalibur and Excelsior ceremony in Rockford. The award was given to recipients who give back to their communities in Boone, Ogle, Stephenson and Winnebago counties.
“People say it was my dream, but it was my vision given to me by the good Lord,” Bearrows said of the in-patient care facility. “So, everybody that worked with me and for me, we all did it together.”
Originally known as Ogle County Hospice since 1984, the eight-bed, in-patient home opened in April 2009.
“After we opened Serenity Home, we changed our name to Serenity Hospice & Home to kind of brand it all together,” said current Executive Director Lynn Knodle.
The idea of an in-patient hospice facility was a novel concept at the time as there was only one other in the state. The first was in Joliet, Knodle said. Serenity Hospice & Home was the second.
While the eight private rooms have all the creature comforts of home including remote-controlled fireplaces, TVs and full-size bathrooms, Knodle said, “What's really nice is that there's a separate alcove in each room that has a full-size Murphy bed. It can pull down and our patients' families and visitors can stay 24/7.”
Instead of room numbers, the rooms have names like “Faith,” “Grace,” “Love” and “Hope.”
In fact, Knodle said, “As the building was going up and before all the drywall was up, they wrote Scripture in all the walls. So, this entire building is encased in Scripture.
Knodle added, “We don’t publicize as being Christian-based, but we don’t apologize for that either. That’s just who we are.”
At any given time, an average of five residents are at the home. The majority of Serenity’s hospice care services are provided to the 80 to 90 patients who are seen in their own homes or longterm care assisted living facilities throughout northern Illinois.
Serenity Hospice & Home operates on a $6 million budget employing about 80 full- and part-time people and supported by over 200 volunteers.
The nonprofit also bolsters its operations with contributions from its three
Angel Treasures resale shops located in Winnebago, Mt. Morris and Dixon and an in-town bereavement center and woodworking shop known as The Serenity Shed.
Knodle said for many terminally ill people there comes a point when all possible cures and treatments become exhausted leaving families at their worst. But it is also a time when the folks at Serenity Hospice and Home are at their best as they help patients and their families navigate the final stages of life.
“It’s been proven that patients who choose hospice care live longer than patients who continue down the curative path just because they are more comfortable, and they get to spend time with their families and their friends.”