Newsroom
Press releases

September’s Charity of the Month: Hospice of the Valley

Hospice of the Valley (HOV) is a nonprofit organization that provides a safe and nurturing environment to help children and families cope with one of life’s most difficult times: the death of a loved one.

HOV, based in San Diego, California, provides palliative, hospice and grief care to support people in their last stages of life, and help family members deal with their loss in order to move forward with hope in their lives.

The MDRT Foundation awarded a $5,000 grant to HOV to provide funding for a grief support handbook and art therapy supplies. This grant was sponsored by Robert Hintze Colyar, CLU, ChFC, an 18-year MDRT member and Platinum Knight from San Jose, California.

HOV serves the medical, physical and emotional needs of patients of families as they go through this difficulty transition. The 30-page grief handbook, One you love has died: Ideas for how your grief can help you heal, was written by James E. Miller, an acclaimed grief counselor. This book will be used to help clients served by HOV’s Community Grief Center programs.

One of HOV’s most effective grief support programs is the art therapy classes for children and adults. This program incorporates many different types of creative and non-verbal expressive activities to encourage a healthy grieving process. This grant will be used to provide art supplies to create projects such as memory boxes and hand-painted photo frames to honor participants’ loved ones.

Since 1979, HOV has helped more than 23,000 individuals and their families throughout Santa Clara County make their transition with dignity and ease the pain of their families’ grief. HOV programs are offered on a sliding-fee scale and no family is ever turned away due to lack of financial resources.