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Table Talk
Intention
Into Action
Jo Williams mans the
phone in her Sacramento, California, home, fielding calls from potential
and current clients, contract massage therapists, hospice agencies
and other interested parties. In between she gives massage and
tends to the business required of any nonprofit director. In
her case it's raising awareness and funds for Healing Hands, Healing
Hearts, the organization she founded in 2001 to provide massage
and energy therapy for people fighting life-threatening disease.
It's a labor of love for this former
schoolteacher, and one that seems to finally be paying off. "It's
taken a while to get the word out, but we've seen a real increase
[lately]," says Williams. "We're becoming more known and
getting more calls."
A successful June fund-raiser marked
a significant turn for Healing Hands, Healing Hearts. More than
200 people attended, and renowned breast-cancer research physician,
Ernie Bodai, M.D., delivered the keynote speech. The previous year's
fundraiser drew 60 people.
"You never know what's going to
happen," says Williams. "We've plodded along, with people
who were therapists but didn't know anything about forming an organization
or a business.
"I'm learning to ask [people]
to join our effort to help these people in need."
Williams' own calling came in 1999,
when she stayed with a beloved aunt who was dying from pancreatic
cancer. The family arranged hospice care, and Williams was profoundly
humbled by the comfort these volunteers provided. "I realized
I wanted to do something along that line as well," Williams
recalls. She trained in hospice care but soon realized that she
longed to touch her clients. She then attended massage school, and
formed an idea of how she could use skilled touch to help people
at the most difficult time in their lives.
Six other women got on board and became
Healing Hands, Healing Hearts' board of directors. They decided
to align the organization with five hospice agencies serving the
greater Sacramento region. They also chose to offer services on
a donation basis - clients or their families pay what they can,
but no one is turned away for lack of funding.
Another important point for Williams
was the ability to pay the massage therapists who contract with
Healing Hands, Healing Hearts.
"I need to honor the therapists
for their time and work, and for their training," she says.
The seven therapists who work with the organization receive $55
per session.
Therapists go to client's homes and
provide massage, craniosacral therapy and energy work as needed,
and guided visualization. Clients present with myriad conditions:
cancer, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, AIDS and sceleroderma,
among others.
Benton Regello was Healing Hands, Healing
Hearts' youngest client to date. Eight years old and undergoing
aggressive treatment for a brain tumor, Benton, who had been blind
since he was a baby, asked his mother, Jeanne, to get him a massage
therapist. "One of his teachers at school would do a little
bit of shoulder massage [on students] when they worked hard, and
so he knew what it was," Jeanne Regello says.
She read about Healing Hands, Healing
Hearts in a local magazine, and contacted Williams in January. Benton
had just undergone extreme radiation on his brain and spinal cord.
"He had been poked and prodded,
everything hurt … we had to give him shots every day,"
Regello says. "I think the massage just made him feel so good
and pampered, so taken care of."
When Benton was readmitted to the hospital
in June, his massage therapist, Valeska Wise, came to his room.
"Two days before he died she gave him a massage," Regello
recalls. "It was just a wonderful experience for him."
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Kelle Walsh
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