Our Clients Say It Best

Serving up Love Daily
Chris Damaske

Aug, 2015

Chris Damaske has been a volunteer for Hospice at Home for over four years, beginning at Lakeland Hospice in 2011. She began doing a variety of direct patient care and companionship including providing respite visits with patients when their caregivers were away and providing friendly visits and playing the piano for patients in nursing homes. In late 2013 when the Hanson Hospice Center in Stevensville opened to the public, Chris began focusing her volunteer time there.

In the beginning she played the piano, visited with the residents, and helped the staff with maintaining an inviting atmosphere at the facility. When the Hanson Hospice Center hired its own chef in 2014, Chris found a niche in the kitchen, assisting with the cooking, serving food, cleaning and doing dishes.  She currently works 100 to 150 hours a month in the kitchen alongside the chef, and has given over 2,000 lifetime service hours to Hospice in Berrien County.

This commitment recently earned Chris the well-deserved United Way of Southwest Michigan "Powerful Giving" award at their annual reception honoring and highlighting the many selfless volunteers our community is fortunate to have. 

Chris makes a difference by providing nutritious and homemade food to an extremely vulnerable population of terminally ill residents.  Diet is a huge part of the residents' health and well-being, and Chris works with the chef to prepare whatever foods the residents want, including pureeing, serving soft foods, or tailoring to any other dietary restrictions. She works in the kitchen to help the chef prepare breakfast, lunch, and dinner for nearly 20 people a day. She takes great pride in her job and never leaves until her tasks are done. 

Chris says that she does what she does to be a part of the feeling the residents and their families get when they stay at the Hanson Hospice Center. It takes a special level of commitment to put in that many hours of physical work, but Chris does it with a smile on her face and love in her heart.