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At Hospice of Humboldt, memories are everywhere. Just look around as you walk through the organization’s tranquil property, nestled up against the McKay Community Forest on the outskirts of Eureka, and you’ll find evidence of them. 

Look down as you walk the meandering “Heart of Hospice” path and you’ll see engraved bricks bearing the names of loved ones whose final weeks and months were eased through the end-of-life care provided by the physicians, nurses, social workers, home health aides and volunteers who work in the facility and spread out to serve people all over the community.

Keep looking and you’ll find more names. They’re on the redwood benches by the meditation labyrinth, on plaques tucked into blooming flowerbeds and on signs outside the property’s three buildings, a chapel, the administrative building and the inpatient Hospice House, where the terminally ill have access to care around the clock. 

These memorial engravings serve to honor departed loved ones, and for Hospice of Humboldt they’re also a vital part of the fundraising necessary to provide a broad range of services, including not just hospice care (reserved for patients who’ve been given a diagnosis of six months or less to live) but also palliative care (for patients given a year or less to live), spiritual care, social work and up to 13 months of grief support for anyone in the community mourning the death of a loved one.

CEO Dianne Keating has a sense of humor about the fundraising. On a recent tour of the grounds she quipped, “Everything is for sale, so if something catches your eye, just let us know.”

Tia Baratelle, the organization’s director of development, leads these fundraising efforts, and as we entered the chapel, with its floor-to-ceiling views of the redwood forest, she said the offer is legit. “I’ll sell anything. You can put your name on my door.”

“She sells redwood trees,” Keating said with a laugh. The engravings aren’t limited to departed friends and relatives. Some people buy them just to support the organization. Baratelle purchased one in honor of her dog after it passed away.

Such enthusiastic fundraising has allowed Hospice of Humboldt to take meaningful strides in expanding care in recent years. Founded in 1979, the nonprofit moved to its current, much larger location near Redwood Acres in 2015, and the Hospice House opened a year later. A palliative care program was launched in 2022, allowing medical care providers and social workers to deliver a range of services to patients wherever they’re living in the community.

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Just last week, the Hospice House doubled its capacity from six beds to 12. Keating explained that the facility has always been licensed to house 12 live-in patients but hiring enough licensed clinicians to staff that many beds proved challenging. (This is a common problem across Northern California and rural communities throughout the country.)

“It’s really rare for a hospice agency to have a Hospice House, especially in a rural setting like ours because of the financial drain on the organization,” Keating said. (The organization budgets to lose almost a million dollars per year operating the Hospice House.) “But our board knew that going in, and it really completed our mission. And we just felt that’s what we needed to do.”

The mission to build the Hospice House was led by former Executive Director Marylee Bytheriver, who died in 2015. The house offers three levels of care, including respite for caregivers and family members who need a break from the often exhausting demands of providing end-of-life care.

“Before the Hospice House was here the only option people had was the hospital,” Baratelle said. “And people want to stay out of the hospital at the end of life. They don’t want to be there. So it’s amazing that we have this option.”

As the tour progressed into the main building we came to a spacious room with an area for kids to play, a big table for group meals and a large stone fireplace. There’s also a full kitchen, and with the house open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Keating said families can come and go as they wish and even spend the night with their loved ones. 

“We really encourage them to use the house as they would their own,” she said. “I mean, we’ve had Super Bowl parties and Christmas parties with families in the living room, Thanksgiving dinners in the dining room — it’s amazing.”

Each of the house’s 12 beds are in private rooms, each with its own bathroom. Most have patios that open to the manicured outdoor grounds. Some families have brought grills to have a patio barbecue with their loved one. During the COVID pandemic, when some people were dying alone in hospitals, patients at the Hospice House could receive visits from loved ones, one at a time.

“It was just such a gift, really, to the family,” Keating said.

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Through a fundraising effort called the Compassionate Growth Campaign, Hospice of Humboldt was able to raise $750,000, enough to recruit another team of caregivers and double the capacity of the Hospice House. 

“We’re very fortunate in Humboldt County,” Keating said. “We’ve been here for so long and we’re so well respected by our referral sources. …  We couldn’t do it without the donors. I mean, operations lose money every year, but the donor support helps fill the gaps.”

“Our community shows up and is generous,” Baratelle agreed.

Dr. Knoll

Hospice of Humboldt recently hired a new full-time medical director, Dr. Charlie Knoll, who said he’s excited to expand access “to help more people get the care they deserve, whether at home or at the Hospice House.”

With a staff of around 111 people, with a similar number of volunteers, Hospice of Humboldt currently serves about 190 patients, with about 110 in hospice care and the other 80 or so in palliative care. 

While that program started just three years ago, it’s already “remarkably successful” due to the large need in the community, Keating said. Designed to help people who aren’t ready for hospice but still have a life-limiting illness, the palliative care program helps patients navigate the often challenging local health care system while building relationships and discussing end-of-life goals.

“This year we are trying to actually double the capacity of that program, because the need is so great in our community that we just can’t, we can’t serve the need,” Baratelle said. “I mean, as you can imagine, there’s a lot of people who need help coordinating their care, who are seriously ill, which impacts the entire family around them. Even the most resourced people reach out to us in crisis, like, ‘What do I do?’”

Roughly 85 percent of Hospice of Humboldt’s patients have Medicare while about 10 percent have insurance through Medi-Cal or Partnership HealthPlan, with a smattering of people with private insurance or none at all. But nobody is ever turned away for an inability to pay. There’s a sliding scale payment structure, and some patients are unhoused. Baratelle said staff will serve people wherever they call home. 

“We’ve served people in shipping containers with no running water and no electricity,” she said. “Our staff are incredible.”

As with the Hospice House, the palliative care program is not a money-maker. There’s very little reimbursement available for palliative care through Medicare or insurance, so the program is “at best break-even for us,” Keating said.

Regardless, fundraising efforts are currently underway in hopes of bringing in another team of caregivers and doubling the palliative care program’s capacity by next year. 

President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” could upend Medicare reimbursement and lead to instability in health care coverage among underserved patients in particular, according to hospice industry professionals, though much of the changes aren’t scheduled to take effect until 2027. 

Funding challenges aside, though, Keating said hospice care is what the entire health care industry should be, with a whole team working holistically and gathering at least once a week to discuss their patients’ needs and goals. Often, they’re able to make last wishes come true. 

This past December, for example, staff organized a surprise visit from Santa Claus for a four-year-old girl whose firefighter father was receiving end-of-life care at the Hospice House.

Another patient’s dying wish was to marry her longtime partner so she’d have his last name on her death certificate. She was too sick to leave the Hospice House, so a social worker and chaplain traveled around the county, securing a marriage license, a wedding dress from The Hospice Shop thrift store in Arcata and helping friends and family gather flowers and decorations. The woman was just 57 years old, and she died six days after the outdoor wedding ceremony. But she did so knowing her wish had come true.

Keating’s own father died in the Hospice House a few years ago. “And it was just so interesting to be on the other side of that, you know, being a daughter and being supported by the team,” she said. “And it was just like, ‘I’m so glad I work here! This is why I work here!”

The tour came to an end behind the Hospice House, where a gurgling outdoor fountain stands at the head of a long, narrow expanse of round rocks that wends through the forest like a riverbed. Keating explained that each rock represents a past patient of the Hospice House. 

“Our team meets weekly to talk about patients and the patients that have passed away,” she said. “They take a stone, and staff shares what was memorable about that patient and family. And then once a year we take all the stones and put them on the Stream of Blessings in the back.”

The rock path meanders through the underbrush and into the distance.

Keating and Baratelle said they and the rest of the staff are proud of the recent expansion and eagerly looking forward to serving more people in the palliative care program.

“It’s going to be another heavy lift [financially],” Baratelle said, “but it’s what our community needs.”

Anyone interested in supporting Hospice of Humboldt can visit the donation page on its website. Those interested in joining the team of staff and volunteers can visit the “Join Our Team” page.