State of the Heart Hospice Staff Pick Up Trash and donate to Agency

Pictured are the “trash Bash” volunteers, left to right, Anita Best, Kendra Aller, Jamie Homan and Katie Heitkamp. All work in the agency’s Coldwater office.

For the past four years, State of the Heart Hospice staff members have met on a Saturday morning in the spring and spent several hours picking up trash on a Darke County roadway. Their reward: A $40 donation by Darke County Solid Waste to their favorite charity which happens to be State of the Heart Hospice. The money is through a state grant.

“We’re proud of our organization and want to give back to the agency,” stated Anita Best, a hospice aide who works out of the agency’s Coldwater office. She was joined this year by three other hospice aides who helped pick up trash on a two mile stretch of Stingley Rd. near Greenville.

“We enjoy ourselves and have a great time being together,” Best said. This year, they had 13 bags of trash. “We divide it between items that can be recycled and trash,” she added. This year, 1,000 people helped in the trash pickup.

“This is an opportunity for us to give back,” Best said. “And, it does not take that long to do. We refer to our project as the ‘trash bash’.”

State of the Heart has cared for patients and families in eastern Indiana and western Ohio who are confronting a life limiting illness for 32 years. The nonprofit agency has offices in Greenville, Coldwater and Portland. For more information, visit the agency web site at www.stateoftheheartcare.org