Blue Ridge Care has unveiled its new Center for Hope & Healing, a facility dedicated to offering comprehensive grief care.

The Virginia-based nonprofit hospice, palliative care and PACE provider financed the center through philanthropic donations. The facility is located in the same building as Blue Ridge’s PACE program, according to CEO Jason Parsons. At the center, Blue Ridge bereavement care staff will offer specialized programs, workshops, support groups and individual counseling.

“The center is a central organizing unit of our mission fulfillment in the areas of grief, family support and loss in a place people can come to that’s welcoming, inviting and centered around hope and healing,” Parsons told Hospice News. “We wanted to take all of these other programs and services we offered across the organization, coalesce them into one department and have a physical center that could invite people to more openly fortify their relationships with other people through our programs in a way that helps them heal after loss.”

Founded in 1981, Blue Ridge Care serves eight counties in northwestern Virginia and the Shenandoah River Valley. The company earlier this year launched its PACE program, Blue Ridge Independence at Home.

The center’s services are available to the entire community, regardless of whether the deceased loved one was a patient of Blue Ridge.

The center was built to create a relaxing atmosphere to help put visitors at ease, according to Parsons, with a sky blue color palette and several murals depicting natural scenes. In one display, a collection of rocks symbolizes the weight of grief. Visitors can write a message on the rocks to “leave that weight behind,” Parsons said. They can also paint their loved ones’ names on a mural of a branching tree in the lobby area. 

Blue Ridge Care

In addition to more traditional grief programs like counseling, the center will offer aromatherapy, children’s and faith-based programs, music, art and equine therapies, among other services.  

“[With the Hope Center] we saw an opportunity to not just create new offices, but to make a center that would be a haven of peace and hope and healing for the folks that we would serve there in those offices, but also for the community at large,” Parsons said. “Every part of that has been meticulously and intentionally designed to create a great experience and to invoke hope and healing and to be a place that’s tranquil and warm and inviting.”