With the holidays already upon us, St. Tammany Foundation’s Melanie Rudolph and St. Tammany Hospice’s Paula Toups recently visited the Lake 94.7 FM studios to talk with host Charles Dowdy about Angels of Light, the foundation’s annual event to honor and memorialize special people throughout the northshore community.
Listen to their conversation in the embedded audio player below or at The Lake website. You can also scroll down to read a transcript of their conversation, edited lightly for length and readability.
Charles: Got friends here from St. Tammany Health System to talk with us. Tim, what is up?
Tim: Well, hey! Happy post-Thanksgiving and almost Christmas. You holding it together?
Charles: Uh, no! I am doing fine. How are you?
Tim: I’m good. … Speaking of the holidays, we have Paula Toups and Melanie Rudolph today to talk about St. Tammany Hospice as well as our annual Angels of Light event.
Charles: Alright, good. Paula, tell me a little bit about what you do for St. Tammany Health System.
Paula: I am the assistant VP for Hospice, Home Health, Transitional Care and Palliative Care.
Charles: And for those of us who don’t work in those industries all the time, give me a sense of what that is. I know what hospice is.
Paula: They are all pretty much home programs, going into the homes. Some (of our nurses) go to the hospital for consults, but home healthcare (is for) if you have a skilled need. Hospice is for a terminal illness. Palliative Care is in between: chronic illness, looking at goals for people, advanced directives, living wills, that kind of thing – helping people figure that out.
Transition care is an after-discharge follow-up, just to try to bridge when you go home to your follow-up with your doctor – an attempt to make sure you have everything you need and to keep you well and from going back to the hospital.
Charles: So, there is a lot of variety there in the sense of the whole spectrum of care in some respects.
Paula: Pretty much. I mean, it is all “post-acute,” as we say. It is pretty much after somebody leaves the hospital.
Charles: How long have you been with St. Tammany Health System?
Paula: Almost nine years.
Charles: And how did you find yourself to this position? Did you start in this kind of work?
Paula: So, I am a nurse and worked lots of places: ICU, emergency department, and found myself in hospice and home care years and years ago. I actually moved from Alabama to Louisiana and ended up doing this for St. Tammany. Worked for some other places along the way, but doing this hospice and home health. Then the other two departments have developed over the past couple of years.
Charles: Alright, well we are glad to get a chance to reconnect with you. Also, Melanie is here from St. Tammany Hospital Foundation. What do you do for the foundation?
Melanie: I am a foundation specialist, so I do all our foundation’s special events and corporate giving – and, of course, my favorite event of the year is our Angels of Light event, which is coming up Thursday December 9th at 5:30 pm and benefits our Hospice program.
Charles: All right, give me more. What are we doing, and how do we do it?
Melanie: So, every year at our Angels of Light event, we light a tree in the lobby of the hospital. The tree is adorned with beautiful angels that are purchased by our community to honor and remember loved ones who may not be with us this holiday season. So we are here to invite our community to purchase tribute angels and to come and join us. We are thrilled to be having an in-person Angels of Light event, given that the COVID laid us low a little bit. We are thrilled to invite our community back to come and join us at Angels of Light.
Charles: Tell me about the event, because there are certain things that I think mean a lot. You go to a party and it is a party, but these are the kinds of things that really, to me, make you think that something special is happening.
Melanie: Yes, there is music. As I said we light the tree and then we read the names of every angel that is on the tree, which is a very impactful moment for that person who is sitting in the audience waiting to hear that loved one’s name.
One thing that we have incorporated is honoring our veterans. Our hospital has an Honor Red, White and Blue program to honor veterans here while they are in our hospital (and) also to honor their legacy after they have passed.
So, this year we plan to incorporate being able to honor those veterans at our program, too. So, we are very excited about that.
Charles: Paula, how are you involved? Give me a sense of how what you do marries with this event.
Paula: So, the Angels of Light is a benefit for our Hospice. People can buy the angels for the tree, either a memorial or honoring somebody. That money benefits our Hospice in a variety of ways.
The angels are $10 each, and Melanie can maybe speak to how to do all of that. The money benefits our Hospice, so we take care of people regardless of the ability to pay. There are a lot of needs out there, particularly this time of year. Sometimes transportation needs – getting to a physician’s appointment, getting to the hospital for whatever reason. There are food needs. There are people out there who need their electricity caught up because of being sick and maybe being behind in their bills. Just so many things.
We also use it for education for the community, to educate people about hospice or end-of-life care. There are lots and lots of ways to give back to people, to give back the community.
Charles: The main thing is you are putting the money to good use. I want to make that clear. You also can honor people. I mean this is an opportunity to both honor and remember.
Paula: Right, for example, in the past I would buy an angel to remember my Dad and at the time honor my Mom. Now, two angels to remember them both. But a lot of people honor special people in their lives. We could honor you for hosting us. Just lots and lots of different reasons all over the board that people want to buy an angel and have it on the tree, have that name spoken, as Melanie said, at the event. People kind of wait for that name to be read.
Charles: Powerful stuff. So, Melanie, how do we do it? How do you get the angels?
Melanie: Tribute angels are a minimum $10 donation. You can purchase them online at sthfoundation.org/angels. If you have questions, you are more than welcome to call me at (985) 898-4141.
Charles: Alright, what have I missed? Anything else?
Paula: I would just say it is a beautiful celebration. It kicks off the Christmas season: Music, Christmas songs, reception afterwards. It is a great time.
Charles: Ok, thank you both for being here and thank you for the work you do in the community.