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Lorys Place is a community treasure
Run, walk or rock for Lory's
Letter to the Editor - Herald Palladium - 2006
Lorys Place is a community
treasure
Editor,
Nearly one year ago, Southwest Michigan welcomed an innovative service
with the opening of Lory's Place, a grief healing and education center.
Owned by Hospice at Home, Inc., and offered as a bereavement service
continuum of their remarkable hospice and palliative care, Lory's Place
provides a safe harbor for the storms of grief experienced by children,
families and adults. Whether the death was long ago or recent,
anticipated or sudden, the journey of grief is a universally shared
experience by each of us at some point in our lifetime. Lorys
Place offers a warm, safe place for peer support groups to fellowship,
share, learn and heal together.
Since opening on November 15, 2004, hundreds
of participants from Allegan, Berrein, Cass and Van Buren counties in
Michigan, as well as from Elkhart and South Bend in Indiana, have taken
the courageous step of accessing the bereavement resource services of
Lorys Place. We have also been blessed with the presence of 45
caring, trained volunteer facilitators, an active and hard-working
advisory board, and a crew (volunteers) of 40 helpful men and women.
The capital campaign of $700,000 has been successfully reached - only
possible as a result of the huge-hearted, generous people of out
community and across the United States. In order to provide the
helpful services of Lory's Place at no cost to the participants, an
annual budget of $180,000 will need to be realized with ongoing
fundraisers, grant awards, private donations and memorial gifts.
Thank you to all of you
who have supported Lory's Place in thought, by sharing our mission with
others, or in offering a financial gift. For the sake of the many
hurting hearts who turn to us for navigation through their storms of
grief, and find hope for continued living, I ask you to please continue
your invaluable connection with Lory's Place.
Lisa Bartoszek
Program Director
Lory's Place
Saint Joseph
Article
from the Herald Palladium - 2005
Run, walk or rock for Lory's
Saturday's event to raise money for bereavement center
By Jim Dalgleish - H-P City editor
ST. JOSEPH - Runners, walkers and even rockers will team up Saturday to
raise money for the Lory's Place bereavement center
The center organized the first Lory's Place Run, Walk and Rock to help
fund the center, formed in honor of Dr. Lory Schults, who died in a 2004
car crash.
"Lory
was a runner, and her sisters are both runners, ... It was a very big
part of her life," said Lory's Place director Lisa Bartoszek.
Schults ran cross country for Northwestern University.
Schults's sisters Libby Baker of Gurnee, Ill., and Lynn Smolinski of
Pittsburgh are among the more than 100 who have registered to run, walk
and sit in rocking chairs for the event. Widowed husband Ron
Schults and their two children, Erik, 6, and Sophia, 4, also are to take
part.
The 5K run and rocking start at 9 a.m. at the center in the Edgewater
Center, 445 Upton Drive. The 5K walk begins there at 9:05. A
relaxed "Waves of Hope Walk" begins at 8 a.m.
The route is largely along the streets of
St. Joseph's Edgewater area, between Lake Michigan and Michigan 63.
Bartoszek said 10 rocking chairs will be in place at the center, which
will host an open house from 7 a.m. to noon.
People can still register from 7-8 a.m. at the center. The entry
fee is $20. Participants are urged to park in the Whirlpool tech
Center parking lot.
Saturday's event and a September regatta are the two annual fund-raisers
to support Lory's Place, Bartoszek said.
Lory's Place was founded in 2004 by Ron Schults, president of Abonmarche
Group in Benton Harbor, Bartoszek and Schults family friend Bill Marohn,
a former Whirlpool Corp. executive.
The center offers support services for those who have lost loved ones.
Bartoszek said 141 people have been helped in the center's seven months
of operations. |
