Lopez Island Home and Hospice Support

We Appreciate You Helping Us Support the Lopez Community in Times of Injury, Illness, and Loss

Who We Are

Lopez Island Home & Hospice Support is a volunteer-based, community focused, nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide home and hospice support services and resources to any Lopez Island resident, of any age, who is experiencing illness, injury, and/or loss. We value independence and privacy. We honor dignity, choices, values and beliefs. We celebrate community and are grateful to be part of the collaborative effort of supporting our Lopez neighbors in times of need.

What We Offer

Durable Medical Equipment (DME)

Last year, your donations helped us add to our medical equipment shed. We offer, at no charge to our island community, a wide variety of durable medical equipment to borrow in times of need. Items include wheelchairs, transport chairs, walkers, crutches, canes, shower seats, commodes, and toilet seat risers.

Help Around the Home and Social Support

Our volunteers can help with a variety of tasks around the home, including light housekeeping, laundry, grocery shopping, meal preparation, light gardening, and on-island transportation. We also provide respite for caregivers and companionship for our clients through social visits, reading aloud, takings walks, or writing letters. 

Hospice Accompaniment

When individuals on Lopez Island are receiving the medical benefits of hospice, our volunteers can augment this support by providing help in the home as well as companionship and a comforting presence at the end of life.

Community Education

LIHHS offers community education programs and volunteer trainings to raise awareness of issues surrounding illness, injury, isolation, and loss. Our emphasis is on supporting the quality of life at any age.

Our newsletters address topics on related issues and can be found on our website. We also provide books to a dedicated LIHHS section at the Lopez Library that are available for checkout.

Bereavement Support

We are here to help if you or someone you know in the Lopez Island community would like to receive bereavement or grief support. We provide this service, on an individual basis, at no charge.

Small Grant Program

Thanks to a generous grant from the Norcliffe Foundation and funds from local donors, LIHHS offers grants to help fund the installation of permanent medical equipment in Lopez Island residents’ homes. Such equipment includes grab bars and ramps. 

The Impact of LIHHS Programs

"You may be one of those people who has had to borrow crutches or a walker from what we used to call "the hospice office," but until you have a real emergency you probably don't know just what LIHHS can actually offer you.

On November 30th of last year, Steve, my husband of 54 years, caught his shoe on the kitchen rug. He went down like a fallen cedar onto our cement floor. It didn't help that he had a large folding knife clipped to his pocket where his femur attaches to his hip. And so it goes. As we have aged here on Lopez, we have been made increasingly aware of our remoteness from easily accessible health care and services. Our medics were soon here, however, and Steve was flown to Bellingham to receive excellent care. Sadly, because of Covid restrictions he was isolated for the first time in our long marriage.

I also felt isolated. Every major decision in our life has been made as a team. Our collaboration with each other has been one of the great blessings of my life. Then, when he was moved to a rehab facility, and still isolated, the problems of this new life began to dawn on me. 

How was I going to get him home? How could he get up the steps to the front door? Who could I turn to to build a ramp? How much would it cost? What about a walker? My friend Levanne Hendrix reminded me of LIHHS, saying, "I think they even have grant dollars for a ramp."

Approaching the office as a needy woman could have been awkward for me. I'm usually the one offering the help. But the staff welcomed me like the flowers in May. I was granted a check for the ramp. I borrowed a walker, a set of crutches, an extended-reach shoe horn, a grabber, and was offered much more. My thanks couldn't start to repay the unconditional generosity that soothed my soul. Three weeks later we brought my honey home. Lopez Island Home and Hospice Support, Thank you!" - Mary Miller