Saturday, April 14, 2012 9am-4pm

Landmark Center Suite 202, Viroqua, WI

Learning care of the body at a TCC workshop

Until the latter part of the 19th century, most people were born and died in their own homes.  When they were born, their family cared for them; when they died, their family cared for them.  Dying, like birthing, was integrated into living. Caring for those who had died was not only the last act of love, it was the first step of healing.

This workshop will give you the information and hands-on practice to prepare you to care for your family member after death at home, and to carry out a home or family-directed funeral with or without the services of a funeral director.

Topics to be covered include:

• Why a home or family-directed funeral
• Advance planning: Utilizing My Final Wishes, WI Health Care Power of Attorney, Living Will, Ethical Will, & Declaration of Final Disposition in advance of your death.
• Meeting WI legal requirements and acquiring the necessary paper work
• Family Direct Cremation & Green Burial options
• Care of the Body
• Creating sacred space
• Home vigils

Cost – $75, includes one copy of My Final Wishes, various handouts and a CD packed with reference materials. Advance registration required – space is limited.

Download the registration form here

The “green” movement—which asks people to consider and honor the environment in their actions—has come to the way we bury our loved ones.

Across the country, people are developing new kinds of cemeteries that honor both the loved one and the environment.

The Threshold Care Circle is hosting a panel discussion, and question and answer session on March 17, 2012, from 1-3:30 p.m. at 500 E. Jefferson Street, Suite 202, in Viroqua, WI (the Landmark Center.)

Come and explore what green burial is, the legal and practical considerations, and the different kinds of cemeteries being created to accommodate green burial. Panelists participating in the afternoon are:

John Sime, owner of Sime Funeral Home in Readstown, who will give the history of burial and embalming, and how we got to where we are today.

Sister Sharon Berger, of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Admiration, tells of the process that her organization went through to have a natural, green, and private cemetery on their land in St. Joseph Ridge.

Selena Fox, environmental activist and director of Circle Cemetery, will talk about combining natural burial with Nature preservation in Greening the end of life.  Circle Cemetery, founded in 1995, is part of the 200 acre Circle Sanctuary Nature Preserve near Barneveld, Wisconsin and is one of first national Green cemeteries in the USA.

Kevin W. Corrado, is a licensed clinical social worker and a licensed cemetery salesperson.  In 2011, Kevin retired from University of Wisconsin Hospital, where he had been a medical social worker for over twenty-four years.  In September of 2011, Kevin and his wife, Susan, sold their home in Madison and moved to the Linda and Gene Farley Center for Peace, Justice & Sustainability.  As resident staff, Kevin is responsible for the 25 acre nature preserve, which is also the home of Natural Path Sanctuary, located at the Farley Center  in Verona, WI.

Admission by free will donations to benefit the Threshold Care Circle. The Threshold Care Circle, is a non-profit cooperative in Viroqua that educates people about choices in after-death care. You can also follow TCC on Facebook.

Topics to be covered include:

• A visual framework: Excerpts from A Family Undertaking
• Why a home or family-directed funeral
• Advance planning: Utilizing My Final Wishes, WI Health Care Power of Attorney, Living Will, Ethical Will, & Declaration of Final Disposition in advance of your death.
• Meeting WI legal requirements and acquiring the necessary paper work
• Family Direct Cremation & Green Burial options
• Care of the Body
• Creating sacred space
• Home vigils

Cost – $60, includes one copy of My Final Wishes, various handouts and a CD packed with reference materials. Advance registration required – space is limited.

Download the registration form here.

• At Home Funerals Presentation at McIntosh Memorial Library on Feb 17
• Article Saying Goodbye Kickapoo Style by Anne O’Connor appears in the March issue of the Kickapoo Free Press
• In March TCC joins Facebook (with over 100 friends currently)
• On March 13 Sharon Lukert, bereavement counselor, facilitated a workshop “When Someone Grieves” at Maplewood Terrace in Viroqua
• On June 7 – Charlene Elderkin gave a presentation on Home Funerals to the Wisconsin Medical Examiner and Coroner’s Conference
• In August Marianne Deitzel & Linda Bergh gave spiritually-oriented readings from their books Laughing in a Waterfall: A Mother’s Memoir and She Would Draw Flowers at the Turning Place in Viroqua. Susan Nesbit and Diane Banner arranged for an evening conversation about loss at The Turning Place between Sharon Lukert and local teenagers.
• In September Karen Dahl interviewed Susan Nesbit and Charlene Elderkin on her radio show and Susan Nesbit’s SUTRA Sale raised $500 for TCC.
• The September Series, four classes on Home Funerals on Thursday nights in September was well attended. Classes were held at the Turning Place in Viroqua.
• In October Susan Nesbit & Charlene Elderkin attend the National Home Funeral Alliance Conference in Boulder, Colorado. Sharon Lukert gave a Pathways to Wellness presentation on Death, Dying and End of Life Care.
• November 13-14 Sharon Lukert presented “Walking the Path of Grief and Loss” at the Turning Place.
• In December Kathy Doerfer gave a presentation on Home Funerals to the confirmation class at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church.
• In January Charlene Elderkin’s article The Call appeared in the Winter issue of Lilipoh magazine, which had a conscious dying/home & green funeral focus.
• On January 23 Joe Orso wrote Midwifing Death at Home for his weekly LaCrosse Tribune column.

TCC directly assisted five families who chose some form of after-death home care. We know there were others that were able to figure out what to do from our website, which has instructions on the paperwork involved, and a page on care of the body.
Our small but steady presence through the last four years reached a tipping point by the end of 2010. The increased awareness the Driftless community has of deathcare choices is having an impact on our young organization. Up until now, we have operated on a volunteer basis, out of our homes. We can see that this is not sustainable and are envisioning some changes.

One thing that needs to change is our location, or lack of one. We do need an office where we can house our small resource library, store our deathcare supplies (including a coffin or two), a place where people can come to get information and supplies when needed. Death does not give us advanced warning, and having TCC’s belongings divided among five households puts on extra pressure when those items are needed and people are away at work or on vacation.

Is there a landlord who has office space available in Viroqua and is willing to donate part or all of the rent to TCC? If so, contact Susan Nesbit at  susanez66@hotmail.com

Another way to support the work of TCC is to develop relationships with our legislators and keep an eye on any legislation that affects our deathcare choices. We do have need of a change in a specific law that effects people who want to appoint an agent to handle their final disposition rather than leaving it up to next of kin. Right now the agent can make the decisions but is not authorized to sign the paperwork that a family member would be able to sign. The end result is that if you appoint an agent that is not next of kin, you will have to use a funeral director to file the necessary paperwork.

Anyone interested in developing relationships with legislators on behalf of home funeral rights (maybe you already have these relationships due to other issues) please let us know.

Our goal for this year is to continue to build relationships in our community. If circumstances (funding) permit, we hope to have an office and an outreach person in place to facilitate training programs for churches and faith communities interested in assisting their members with home funerals.

Thank you for your continued interest and support,

Charlene Elderkin, Susan Nesbit, Kathy Doerfer, Kathy Neidert and Diane Banner

Lukert has provided professional compassionate care to individuals as a chaplain, nurse, bereavement and end-of-life care counselor for over 20 years. She has facilitated workshops and support groups for professionals and the public on death, dying and grief since 1999.

“Grief and loss are an integral part of our lives which affect us physically, emotionally, and spiritually,” said Lukert. “We often do not have the time or support to engage with our losses in order to recover, heal and integrate the loss into our lives. When we are able to integrate loss, “she said, “it can lead to a renewal of our life force and sense of purpose and can open us to deeper levels of compassion, understanding and empathy.”

Lukert will provide a supportive and safe environment for workshop participants to explore their personal path of grief and loss. She will combine group discussion, experiential exercises, and meditation and “conclude with a ritual to honor our losses and to facilitate healing and reconnection with our own tender heartedness,” she said. The cost of the 2-day workshop is $100 with sliding scale available. To register, call Lukert at 563-538-9320

TCC is an educational organization, our mission is to teach. When someone in our heart circle dies, as individuals we may offer to help, but as an organization we are not the hands-on group. We are not able to offer on-call 24/7 assistance. We’d love to see every family circle, every faith community, every heart community develop a group of hands on volunteers who know what to do when a death occurs for those who want to take care of their deceased at home. TCC would like to assist in developing these hands-on circles.

If you would like to be a TCC volunteer or if someone you love is going to die someday and you would like to know how to provide them with home death care, please come to this workshop or call us to schedule a day for a group from your community (minimum 6 maximum 12).

We always think we’ll have more time. And then one day we don’t.

Download a registration form

HFSeries2010Final

On Saturday  March 13 2009, 1-5pm, Sharon Lukert will facilitate a workshop “When Someone Grieves” at Maplewood Terrace, 620 Garfield Avenue, Viroqua.

In this workshop we will review the normal grieving process and how to support others who are experiencing loss and grief.

We cannot be truly present for someone’s grief unless we are familiar and comfortable with our assumptions and beliefs and our own sense of loss. We will explore in a safe, supportive environment how to touch into our tender heart of sadness, which will allow us to be more fully present for someone else who is grieving.

Using experiential exercises we will explore Compassionate Listening Skills and the development of authentic presence in order to support others through their grief process.

Cost of the workshop is $30. To register, call Susan Nesbitt at 608-606-4566

Sharon Lukert is a Chaplain, Nurse, End-of-Life Care and Bereavement Counselor who has provided professional, compassionate care to individuals within the hospital, skilled nursing facility and private home settings for more than twenty years. She has facilitated workshops and support groups for professionals and the public on grieving, death and dying since 1999. Her workshops combine group discussion, experiential exercises and meditation techniques to allow individuals to explore and enhance their awareness and understanding of these complex issues in a safe and supportive environment.

Elderkin and three other volunteers with Threshold Care Circle Services led about 14 people in a discussion about at-home funerals Tuesday night at Western Technical College in Viroqua.

The Viroqua-based nonprofit organization helps those who might prefer a respectful service at home, or perhaps a “green” funeral — environmentally friendly options that do not require embalming fluids and expensive metal caskets.

Costs for a standard funeral can be almost $10,000, Elderkin said, but that’s not the only reason some people choose to honor loved ones at home after death rather then use a funeral parlor.

“Many people say the money wasn’t what it was about, because the experience was so meaningful,” she said.

The nonprofit offers seminars on legal forms and legal rights, plus options and resources available to prepare a body for home visitation.

The organization is not against funeral directors, Elderkin said — they simply want to enlighten people about their options.

“A good funeral director will honor your choices,” she said.

Therese Laurdan, 42, of Viroqua said she was fascinated by the notion of recapturing a lost tradition.

“Sometimes you forget there are choices,” Laurdan said, “and things weren’t always a certain way. Birth, marriage, death — those are big rituals in our lives, and they’ve been taken over.”

Ann Thicke, 68, of Bangor said she recently lost her mother and was shocked by the high cost of the funeral to her family.

“We were wondering is all of it necessary,” Thicke said, “and is there anything we could do differently?”

Story:
From the Coulee Times Thursday, April 03, 2008

LEGAL MATTERS: New law provides more choice for funerals, burials
By GREGORY BONNEY

Though it might sound cold, a new Wisconsin law will actually bring peace of mind to many residents. The law, called Authorization for Final Disposition, allows Wisconsin adults to choose who will make their funeral and burial arrangements.

Prior law held that next of kin made all arrangements, regardless of the wishes of the deceased. That created a number of problems for unmarried couples, siblings of deceased parents and the clergy and funeral directors who were trying to sort out to whom they should listen.

For more of this story, click on or type the URL below:

http://www.couleenews.com/articles/2008/04/03/features/legal+matters.txt

Want to take advantage of the new law?

Download the Wisconsin Designated Agent Form at the Funeral Consumer Alliance website.

Instructions for using WI Designated Agent Form