Betty Chiang & Andrew Lan
Our new Administrative Assistants
HOT
WORLD JOURNAL PUBLISHING WEEKLY CACCC COLUMN
On 1/31/10, CACCC's first end-of-life educational column appeared in the World Journal. Former World journal journalist and CACCC staff member Andrew Lan is in charge of this project, which will result in a CACCC column each week for the rest of the year. We are so thankful that the World Journal has agreed to publish the columns.
Don't miss our column this Sunday and the weeks to follow, and please tell your family and friends to look for our Column each week.
Tentatively, the general topics for each month are:
First month: Death Education
Second : What is End-of-Life Care?
Third: Dealing with Chronic Diseases
Fourth: Why is There a Need for the CACCC?
Fifth: What Does the CACCC do?
Sixth: End-of-Life Care- East and West
Seventh: Chinese Belief system Differences - Death and Dying
Eighth: The Advance Health Care Directive and POLST
Ninth: Where Can We Find Community Resources
Tenth: Who Can be an End-of-Life Care Volunteer?
Eleventh: Accidental Death & the Death of a Child
Twelfth: What Are CACCC's Future Plans
We are looking for contributions of personal stories and experiences from our members. Please contact us if you have stories you feel will expand the community's understanding of end-of-life issues. Also, please send us your reaction to each column, so we can make each column better than the last. Looking forward to hearing from you.
CACCC AND HOSPICE FOUNDATION OF AMERICA PRODUCE FIRST CHINESE/ENGLISH "JOURNEYS"
The first-ever English-Chinese issue of Hospice Foundation of America's "Journeys, A Newsletter to Help in Bereavement," is now available for purchase from the HFA website (www.hospicefoundation.org). "Doing Everything We Can," authored by CACCC Founder Sandy Chen Stokes and CACCC Senior Consultant Phil Stokes, is designed to help with medical decisions related to caring for a terminally ill family member or friend. In this situation, it is natural for family members to wonder if they are doing the right thing, since it is not always clear what 'Doing the Right thing' means. Family members may actually feel guilt, sometimes long after the loved one dies, if there are doubts about whether they have made the "right" decision. This issue offers a way to avoid that guilt.
MEMORY BOOK TEAM MAKING PROGRESS
The CACCC Memory Book Team, chaired by Teresa Cheng, is working hard to complete the CACCC Memory Book for publication before year’s end. The CACCC Memory Book will serve as a tool that can be used by individuals facing terminal illness to record such things as their life history, messages they want to leave behind, and photos and important documents they want others to have.This project is partially funded by Kaiser Permanente’s $10,000 David Lawrence National Community Service Award, which the CACCC received in 2008. Team members are Teresa, Steven Chen, Lily Hsueh Lee, Wen Ko Yeh, Pauline nee, and Sandy Chen Stokes.
CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT TEAM ALREADY WORKING ON CHINESE HOSPICE VOLUNTEER TRAINING
The CACCC Curriculum Development Team, chaired by Pauline Nee, has begun to organize materials provided by local hospice agencies, and materials gathered from the CACCC's first Taiwan Training Tour into curriculum blocks for the new Chinese Hospice Volunteer Training to be offered in the Summer. Team members are Pauline, Wei-Chien Lee, Mei Man Chen, Angie Jim, Ya-Mei Chang, and Sandy Chen Stokes.
EMBERS STILL BURNING
CACCC FUNDRAISER A GRAND SUCCESS
A big thanks to all our volunteers who helped make our 2009 Autumn Festival Event a success! Your hard work helped us raise a little over $40,000, after expenses. Not bad for our first effort. Better still, the fundraiser resulted in ongoing contributions of $2000 per month from Betty Sung and a $10,000 donation from the Celia Chen Trust. Thank you so much, Betty and Celia! This fundraiser was especially important at a time when institutional grants are drying up because of the downturn in the economy. The additional funds allow us to continue our work in the Chinese American community to ensure quality care at the end of life. Again, thank you for your continued support. Your personal contributions make a real difference in the lives of many Chinese Americans.
SANDY WAS AWARDED THE LANE ADAMS QUALITY OF LIFE AWARD
FROM THE AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY LAST SPRING
In early May, CACCC Executive Director Sandy Chen Stokes headed off to Atlanta, Georgia with her husband Phil, where she received the American Caner Society’s Lane Adams Quality of Life Award, a national award granted to a small number of people yearly. Fifteen nominees from across the nation received the award in 2009.
The American Cancer Society describes the Land Adams Quality of Life Award in this way: “The Lane Adams Quality of Life Award recognizes individuals who have made a difference through innovation, leadership, and consistent excellence in providing compassionate, skilled care, and counsel to persons living with cancer and their families. These extraordinary individuals come from many disciplines and backgrounds, and their daily work is committed to extending “the warm hand of service,” a phrase coined by the late Lane W. Adams, a former executive vice president of the Society. The awards recognize the unsung heroes of cancer care who give hope, comfort and the very best care to cancer patients and their families.”
HOSPICE 2009 NATIONAL BEREAVEMENT TELECONFERENCE - DIVERSITY AND END OF LIFE CARE
Executive Director Sandy Chen Stokes represented the CACCC on Hospice Foundation of America’s 16th annual National Bereavement Teleconference, "Diversity and End-of-Life Care" on April 29th. The program focused on ways of understanding diversity and how cultural histories, traditions and beliefs can affect end of life care. It looked at the challenges of serving a multicultural population from time of terminal diagnosis all the way through the grieving process. The teleconference was broadcast via satellite to over 600 sites throughout the country. Over 100,000 attended. Participants at each site had the opportunity to ask the panelists questions and respond to issues raised by the panelists. At the conclusion of the televised panel in Washington, DC, each local site convened its own panel to continue the discussion begun in Washington.
CACCC FORMS INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE
The following persons were chosen to sit on the CACCC International Advisory Committee: Co-Shi Chantal Chao, PhD, Enoch Lai, MD, Ming-Hwai Lin, MD, and Monique Kuo, MD. The CACCC is honored to have such renown and dedicated experts on our team.There is no doubt that the CACCC and the Chinese American community will benefit greatly from their advice. Welcome!