SCARBOROUGH – Hospice of Southern Maine announced the public phase of its Capital Campaign to fund a Home Hospice Center at a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday, June 13.
The event featured several guest speakers, including Sen. Susan Collins.
The 14,550-square-foot building, located at 390 Route 1 in Scarborough, will be the central hub for supporting, mobilizing and dispatching home care clinical teams.
Those teams currently care for approximately 200 hospice patients per day in 66 towns across southern Maine, a number that is slated to grow, according to a press release.
“This new Home Hospice Center will advance Hospice of Southern Maine’s mission of helping to ensure that life’s journey ends among caring family and close friends,” said Sen. Collins, who is also the chair of the Senate Aging Committee. “If care at home is no longer an option, Gosnell Memorial Hospice House provides a comfortable home-like setting for advanced, patient-centered care in the final days.”
Other speakers at the event were Hospice of Southern Maine CEO Daryl Cady, founding board Chair Dr. Katherine Pope, Hannaford SVP of Merchandising Peter Forester and Judy MacInnes, whose husband Ian MacInnes passed away at the Hospice. Board Chair Edward McGeachey introduced the speakers, and many Hospice employees and volunteers attended the ceremony.
To date, Hospice of Southern Maine has raised $4.5 million of its $5.6 million goal to fund the Center, according to Cady, and invites the community to support their efforts to raise the remaining $1.1 million needed to complete this important project.
In addition to housing the Clinical & Access Departments and acting as a coordination center for home care clinical teams, the new Center will offer a Family Bereavement Suite for free community grief counseling, and a Learning & Simulation Lab for training.
The Center will also house a community room for education, special events and volunteer training.
Maine ranked 49th in the nation for hospice care 14 years ago, Cady said, and only 9 percent of people who were eligible for hospice were using it.
Today, hospice utilization has increased to 57 percent and now Maine ranks 25th in the nation.
“The need for hospice services is on the rise, and we are seeing more and more Mainers take advantage of the high quality care we offer,” said Cady. “We have heard time after time – and the data shows – that people want to be home at the end of life. This new building will help support that. It will also give families and others in the community a visible place to access the information, education, and grief support they need.”
With 80 percent of Americans wishing to die in their own homes and only 20 percent doing so, the Home Hospice Center will not only provide a space for the agency’s growing home care team, but also a place for families, caregivers, and healthcare providers to receive the education and support they need to help make that wish a reality.
“We have received incredible support for Home Hospice Care Campaign, our fundraising effort to support the new building, and are so very grateful to those that have helped us get this far towards our goal,” said Cady. “Now we are turning to the community to help us get to the finish line. Every gift helps us continue our mission of compassion, care, and comfort at the end of life.”

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