June Shared Offering: Compassion & Choices

During the month of June, we will share our offertory collection with Compassion & Choices. Half of all cash and any designated checks collected during the Sunday service will go to this nonprofit organization that supports individuals and families facing important end-of-life decisions. Compassion & Choices educates the public, health care professionals, lawmakers and the media on end-of-life issues, and advocates for compassionate end-of-life care in legislatures, courtrooms and at bedsides. Compassion & Choices spearheads initiatives across the country to secure rights to make important end-of-life decisions based on individual values and views. Their state and national litigation solidifies rights to excellent end-of-life care including aggressive pain and symptom management and palliative sedation. Compassion & Choices asserts your right to choose aid in dying under constitutional protections. The Compassion & Choices Action Network fights for aid-in-dying laws for terminally ill, mentally competent adults; builds coalitions to defeat bills that would force patients to endure feeding tubes against their wishes; strengthens advance directives; and mandates pain and palliative care training for health care providers. Compassion & Choices has supported the Death-with Dignity Laws that have been enacted in Oregon, Washington, Montana, and Vermont. More information about Compassion & Choices can be found at their website: www.compassionandchoices.org. After the Sunday service on June 30, Jana Edge, who is a nurse in Bloomington, IL and a volunteer with Compassion & Choices, will be at church to talk with us about the organization, the importance of having advance directives, and the need to know your rights and responsibilities when dealing with doctors and hospitals concerning end-of-life issues. If you are interested, we hope you will join us on the 30th. We will have a light lunch, and can provide childcare if needed. Karen Retzer & Nancy Dietrich