BANGOR — Hospice of Eastern Maine honored two volunteers for their distinguished service at its recent annual appreciation dinner and recognition evening. Deborah “Debbie” Leavitt received the Lillian Rivers Award, HOEM’s greatest tribute for nonpatient care service, and Mary Rustin received the Patricia Jameson Award, HOEM’s highest accolade for patient care volunteers. Lillian’s daughter and granddaughter, Trisha and Hannah Snyder, presented the Lillian Rivers Award to Leavitt in acknowledgement of the significant hours of clerical support she provided the agency.
Rustin received the Jameson Award from Julie Monroe, Patricia Jameson’s daughter, in recognition of the exemplary service she lovingly provided terminally ill patients and their families in the Bangor area.
Leavitt became an active patient care volunteer with HOEM in 1996 until a job drew her away from the area in 2002. She returned to the area in 2005 and after settling into her new home re-established volunteer ties with HOEM. She remains an active patient care volunteer, respected for the competent service she provides those entrusted to her care, but she also
contributed a significant amount of clerical support for the office staff at Bangor Area Visiting Nurses/HOEM in 2014 when she was “between jobs.” Leavitt makes her home in Bangor and now works in her “dream job” in Holden. She is a devoted mother and grandmother to her son and two young grandsons.
Rustin has been a dedicated patient care volunteer with HOEM since fall 2007, co-serving HOEM and Community Health and Counseling Services hospice patients in the Old Town area. She provided attentive, compassionate volunteer care for three hospice patients and their families in 2014 — talking, listening, singing, laughing and providing safe supervision for the patients so their caregivers could take a break. She is a long-time resident of Milford, well-known for her decades of community service in numerous capacities. At age 85 she still continues to organize the annual Community Reading Program she initiated at the Lewis Libby School more than 15 years ago. Rustin has served 14 patients and families since becoming a HOEM volunteer and devoted more than 657.5 hours to hospice. Her volunteer service was interrupted for 18 months in 2009-2010 when she herself became a hospice patient and learned first-hand the benefits of receiving hospice care.
The Lillian Rivers Award was established in spring 2011 in honor of longtime volunteer program secretary, Lillian Rivers, who was its first recipient. Lillian died at age 86 in October 2011 after living with advanced lung cancer for 10 months and modeling how to live gracefully with terminal illness. She last volunteered at HOEM on Sept. 6, 2011, and shortly thereafter became a hospice patient with HOEM.
The Patricia Jameson Award was established in 1990 in honor of Patricia Jameson, an exceptional patient care volunteer who, after four years of serving patients and families as a hospice volunteer, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. After her diagnosis, she continued to volunteer with hospice patients until she was no longer able to do so. She then became a recipient of hospice services and died at age 51.
Hospice of Eastern Maine is a program of Bangor Area Visiting Nurses. For information,
visit emhospice.org or call 973-8269.