Hospice brings holiday joy to senior center residents

Hospice brings holiday joy to senior center residents
Newburyport (MA) News
December 25, 2023
Lorraine Kawiecki’s nursing home room was decorated with tinsel, a shiny elf and a wreath. The 93-year-old received gifts of a stuffed dinosaur comfort toy, a yellow-and-white handmade blanket and—of course, her favorite snack—animal crackers. Santa’s helpers this year, though, looked a little different. Compassus, a North Andover-based hospice organization, paid Kawiecki and others a visit for the holidays, making sure that even the people with family far away or maybe without any at all still have a merry Christmas. ... "Companionship through hospice programs like Compassus are integral to a senior’s Christmas season," [Joe] Peterson [the area executive of clinical operations at Compassus] said. “Volunteers really bring life to our program and to our patients,” he said.