Letter
from the CEO
Education
Health & Human Services
Arts & Culture
Civic & Community
Ohio Casualty Foundation Grants
International Giving2008 Chairman’s Community Service
Award Winners
Guidance. Compassion. Hope.
Reese Aarthun, Eric Kingsbury and Deborah Patin are the recipients of the 2008 Liberty Mutual Chairman’s Community Service Award. They are individuals who have made an unwavering commitment to people in need in their communities.
Created in 2006, the annual award recognizes three Liberty Mutual employees for their “significant and sustained volunteer contributions” to charitable organizations in their communities. This year’s winners are a hospice worker in Wisconsin, a friend to children affected by HIV/AIDS in Washington and a food pantry founder and volunteer from New Jersey. Each receives a $10,000 grant from the Liberty Mutual Foundation for the organization for which they volunteer.
Reese Aarthun
As the “cookie lady” of Aspirus Comfort Care and Hospice Services, Reese Aarthun knows that a sweet treat does more than calm a sugar craving. It also helps create a home away from home when patients and their families enter hospice.
For the past 10 years, she has baked cookies, prepared special meals and just listened to patients and their families.
Because about 85 percent of hospice patients stay at home, Reese, a senior business analyst, helps build a community
among them. “I see such strength in the hospice residents and their families. And not all patients are visibly ill
all the time. They can have good days with the bad, and I’m there to share all of it.”
And when a patient passes away, whether at Hospice House, home, a nursing home or a hospital, Reese is an important resource for the family. Making regular phone calls for a year or more, she contacts the families so they can talk with someone who has experienced the sadness and bright moments right along with them.
Aspirus Executive Director Jean Burgener sees the impact on residents, families and other hospice workers. “Reese is a role model for other volunteers at Hospice House who can easily see how compassion and creativity come together to improve the lives of dying patients and their families,” she says.
Eric Kingsbury
Eric Kingsbury, a territory manager, volunteers with the Cascade AIDS Project (CAP), where he is a dedicated child-care volunteer throughout the year at Kids’ Connection and a cabin counselor at Camp Starlight for a week each summer.
“There is still a lot of stigma around AIDS,” Eric says, “and the Kids Connection and Camp Starlight are places where
kids can be themselves and talk about what’s going on in their lives—whether they or their parents are sick.”
There is also a strong emphasis on education and prevention. “We want to end the cycle of infection,” Eric says. “I want these kids to have the confidence and knowledge to make the right decisions, and know someone is supporting them every step of the way.”
According to CAP Executive Director Michael Kaplan, Eric is helping to do just that. “Eric has taken the extraordinary
step of spending significant extra time and energy to get to know our programs inside and out, and to be a consistent
presence in the lives of Kids’ Connection children and their families,” he says.
“Eric’s ability to integrate himself
into our services in a
seamless and culturally sensitive way is one of the many
qualities that makes him invaluable
to CAP.”
Deborah Patin
Deborah
Patin, a customer service representative, will tell you she has volunteered at a food pantry in Piscataway, New Jersey,
which she helped create, for 12 years—organizing food donations, receiving requests, handing out food to families
in need. While that’s technically correct, it takes a letter from the pantry’s executive director to really explain
what she does, and the impact she makes.
“During Deborah’s tenure at the food pantry, she has selflessly given of her time and her talents to support the success
of the organization,” writes Wilhelmina Bryant. “She consistently provides guidance and understands the ongoing needs
of those who are vulnerable and at risk.”
In fact, as long as there is a need, Deborah addresses it. “Requests for help have only been increasing,” she says. “We used to see one to two new families a quarter; now it is four to five a month.”
And if the Thanksgiving meal counts are any indication, they will have their work cut out for them. “The pantry served traditional dinners to more than 60 families and, with some families having as many as seven people, we’re easily feeding hundreds of people,” Deborah says.
