Big Hearts
Blessing Foundation Inc

Trains, Automobiles, Planes, and Phones

Read on to learn how friends started a Blessing Foundation fund to bring families together at the end of life.
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Hospice patients should be surrounded by the ones they love during their final days

Big Hearts TAPP steps in when financial difficulties threaten to keep families apart

When Todd Forrest learned that his grandfather was dying, he worried that he wouldn’t be able to say goodbye.

Todd was serving in the military and didn’t think he could make it home.

His grandfather, Terry, was like a father to him. It was heartbreaking to lose him – and more painful knowing he might not be able to spend time with him during his final days. 

Thanks to a Blessing Foundation fund called Big Hearts TAPP, Todd was there with his grandfather when he died.
Trista Neisen

“We worked with his commander to get him home,”

recalls Trista Neisen, a social worker at Blessing Hospice and Palliative Care who helped coordinate the grant request with the Foundation. “His grandfather didn’t live long afterward, but he was able to spend meaningful time with him, and we were able to make changes to his return flight, so he could also be here for the services.

“He was so appreciative.”

Big Hearts TAPP’s Impact

In addition to paying for travel costs to bring families together at the end of a loved one’s life, Big Hearts TAPP (Trains, Automobiles, Planes, and Phones) also provides phone cards to help families stay in communication during the hospice journey, and gas cards to help defray costs of multiple trips related to caring for a dying loved one.

In 15 years, Big Hearts TAPP has granted more than $12,700 to help coordinate visits or provide phone cards for families.

Among them:
  • A man with terminal cancer hadn’t seen his mother for several years but was able to reunite with her, share his situation, and talk with her one last time.
  • An adult daughter caring for her dying father got help with gas money for the daily drives to his home, which was about 120 miles round-trip.
  • A grandmother with leukemia got to visit with her granddaughter and great-grandchildren, who lived several states away and couldn’t afford the trip home.
  • A wife and daughter of a man with dementia got help with travel costs for the 80-mile round-trip to visit him in his nursing home.
  • A wife who exhausted all other community resources got assistance with gas money for trips to a pharmacy in another town to pick up her husband’s medicine several times a week.
“Sometimes we’re the last resort. They’ve tried everything else,” Neisen says. “Words can’t even express what it means to patients and families. It’s one less thing they have to worry about, and they can concentrate on being there with their loved one and being present.

“The smile, the appreciation we see, it makes it all worth it.”
Mother Daughter Train
Todd Shackelford

How it All Began: Friends with Big Hearts

The Big Hearts TAPP fund was created in May 2004 when a group of friends got to know a few Quincy University Franciscans, one who had done work with Project Lazarus in New Orleans.

“It’s a very esteemed organization doing wonderful work, especially with end-of-life clients,” said Todd Shackelford, who was part of the group. “They had a big masquerade party to generate funds for Project Lazarus, and we thought, ‘Why don’t we do something like that?’”

The group of about a dozen formed a committee, named themselves Big Hearts, and started planning a spectacular fundraising party at the State Room with proceeds to benefit Blessing Hospice.

But they decided to go a step further.

They partnered with the Blessing Foundation to set up a permanent fund, Big Hearts TAPP, to provide grants to local hospice patients to allow families to be together at the end of life.

“One of the committee members shared a story about a person who was at the end of life and the family was out of town and couldn’t come back. It was as sad as could be,” Shackelford said. “How long does that linger … the regret that they weren’t able to come back?”
The Big Hearts group has organized about 20 fundraisers for other causes since their inception, including support for Haiti and the Quincy Humane Society. But the Big Hearts TAPP fund through the Blessing Foundation will always hold a special place.
“End of life is a significant event,” Shackelford said. “To be able to have loved ones with you is so incredible. It helps with the quality of the process. There are many good causes. But I can’t think of anything more profound or worthy than to bring loved ones together at that time.”
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