NEWSFEED

CEO Message: September 2025

President & CEO, Erin White, at the 2025 Fashion & Compassion Event

Dear Friends,

This past spring marked one year since I joined Hospice Giving Foundation, following in the footsteps of community leader and mentor, Siobhan Greene. What a year it has been—filled with new acquaintances (many of you now friends and thought partners), learning opportunities, candid conversations, community building, and moments of reflection. In other words: all of my favorite things.

I feel grateful to work in a field that stretches both my mind and my heart. The science and technicalities of healthcare are interwoven with the soul of end of life—with family, with love, and with care. End of life calls on the whole, authentic person, and it is a privilege to work alongside people who embody that way of being every single day.

Last month, we hosted our biannual fundraiser, Fashion & Compassion. It was a joy-filled success, but I’ll admit that as a first-time host, I wondered how to reconcile the glamour and fun of a fashion show with the profound work of hospice, palliative care, grief, and bereavement. How to weave the two together?

After much thought, I decided to make a claim in my remarks that day: At Hospice Giving Foundation, we believe wellbeing, community, and—yes—even beauty deserve a seat at the table at end of life.

This feels deeply true. Everything we do at Hospice Giving Foundation is about fostering conversations around end of life, so we can approach it with agency, clarity, and choice. These conversations allow us to discern our wishes, share them with loved ones and care teams, and create pathways that bring more peace, dignity, and even beauty to our final days. While none of us can fully script how our lives will end, we can be better prepared when we plan well, communicate openly, and invite others to walk alongside us.

And so, at Fashion & Compassion, we embraced it. Together we laughed, cried, shared meals, danced, delighted, and celebrated life in its fullness, all while supporting work that will sustain us at the end.

As a student of philosophy and an inveterate truth seeker, I find meaning in these contrasts and tensions. Being willing to sit with complexity makes life more vivid and real and often leads us to wiser, more compassionate solutions. Hospice Giving Foundation offers space to do that together, and I am grateful to stand with you in this work.

With gratitude,

Erin White
President & CEO