The eHope Foundation is focused on building meaningful community in families and neighborhoods which provides a safety net of compassion and care for the seriously ill.
In his book, "Bowling Alone," Robert Putnam asserts that civil society is breaking down as Americans become more disconnected from their neighbors and communities. Increasingly, Americans are placing less value on civic engagement and relationships with neighbors, family and friends.
Technological innovation has increasingly turned our focus inward, away from meaningful face-to-face relationships with others in our community. We retreat daily to the privacy of our homes where we seek entertainment from an array of individualized technology options. More often than not, we get to know our neighbors through the blinds, forming our perceptions from afar.
The effects of this disengagement have impacted our health and safety. Putnam points out that as people associate with one another in various capacities, whether it be at the kitchen table, the sidewalk, the card club or the PTA, people form relationships that provide a pool of friends who can be relied upon when times are hard, the dog needs to be walked, or the poor elderly woman next door needs her home painted. Each relationship is an asset, the accumulation of which can be called one's "social capital."
At the same time, the lack of consistent care giving which follows seriously ill patients across all care settings is a significant flaw in our fragmented health care system. This absence of coordination results in disruption of care, difficulty in maintaining adequate communication, and additional stress being placed on caregivers and their families. This situation is most acute in cases of life-threatening and terminal illness.
At the point when our neighbor, who we've come to know through the blinds, constructs a wheelchair ramp on the front of their home, we're troubled and concerned. We want to help out, but we have no idea of how to help or what to even say. We lack the necessary social capital with our neighbor to easily step in to help them out.
Conversely, if the wheelchair ramp belongs to me or the loved one that I am caring for, that same lack of social capital prevents me from being able to ask for or accept the help that I need from my neighbors. Instead we seek paid or institutional alternatives for care which does not come close to the depth and quality of care that true community can provide.
eHope founder Jeffrey Wood first experienced this poignant reality in 2000 when he and his wife Susan befriended a neighbor in Westbrook, Maine who had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Encouraged by the spiritual and emotional support of their friends, they formed a caregiver support network for their neighbor which provided her with something that no institution could: compassionate care from an inner circle of family, friends, co-workers and neighbors willing to provide their help at no charge.
What has evolved through thousands of volunteer hours spent in support of families caring for a loved one battling a life-threatening illness, is an innovative and scalable model for community building which addresses the steady decline in traditional community and the shortcomings in the medical care system in caring for our sick and dying friend or relative.
In the past 3 years, eHope has helped dozens of small communities of caregivers throughout Maine unite to provide care in a way where no single individual is over-burdened and where the care recipient is able to focus their energy on getting well and strengthening their personal relationships.
eHope Foundation | PO Box 7794 | Portland, ME 04112 |