Category: Barrington

Cornerstone VNA Welcomes Three New Board Members

Cornerstone VNA Welcomes Three New Board Members

 

Rochester, NH – Cornerstone VNA, your local nonprofit home health and hospice care organization, is pleased to welcome and introduce the newest members of their Board of Directors, Marilyn Staff, RN, David Richard, and Laura Davie.

 

According to Julie Reynolds, RN, MS, President/CEO, “We are thrilled to have Marilyn, David and Laura join our dynamic and steadfast Board of Directors. In addition to sharing a passion for our mission, they all bring extensive experience in health care and leadership skills.” Julie adds, “Marilyn, David and Laura are joining our board during an exciting time as we kick off our 110th year anniversary, and work together to honor our past, celebrate the present, and look ahead to the bright future of our VNA.”

 

A graduate of Boston College, Marilyn Staff, BSN, RN, CCM has been an RN for over 35 years and is currently the Director of Care Coordination at FedPoint located in Portsmouth, NH. For over 8 years, she has been overseeing Care Management and Fraud Waste and Abuse for the Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program. She has extensive senior leadership and clinical operations management experience in various settings, as well as significant risk and audit experience.  A strategic, analytical, and visionary leader, Marilyn is a past member of the Massachusetts Home Care Alliance and collaborated to establish the first Salem State Universality (previously SSC) Nursing shadow program.

 

David Richard is currently the sales manager for liquid fuels and equipment as well as head of community outreach for D.F. Richard Energy in Dover, NH. Prior to re-joining his family’s business in 2015, he was an occupational therapist for over 20 years in various settings, including skilled nursing facilities (SNF), and visiting nurse agencies. He has also held department management positions in SNF settings, including lead therapist positions in various VNA settings.

 

David shares, “I am honored to be a part of such a passionate group of professionals that provide much needed home health services to the greater Rochester area and beyond. Additionally, I have experienced Cornerstones VNA’s services firsthand as they have provided amazing care to my mother in her final weeks. All I can say is that I was much impressed with the level of compassion and level of communication to myself and my siblings. It was comforting to all of us. I would not hesitate to recommend Cornerstone VNA to anyone in need of at home care.”

 

Rochester resident, Laura Davie, is the Director of the Long Term Care and Aging focus area at the Institute for Health Policy and Practice (IHPP). She is also the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Center on Aging and Community Living (CACL), a collaboration between IHPP and the Institute on Disability at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, NH. Laura joined IHPP in 2005 and provides leadership, project management, facilitation, and evaluation across multiple projects focused on person-centered options for older adults to support them to live and age in communities of their choice. Currently, Laura is a Cornerstone VNA Hospice Volunteer, an active member of the Tri-State Learning Collaborative on Aging’s Advisory Board, and is a collaborative partner in the NH Senior Leadership Series. Laura was a New Hampshire Public Health Association Board Member (2009-2016) and served as Vice President (2011-2015).

Laura shares, “As a hospice volunteer these past two years, I have learned about the breadth and depth of services Cornerstone VNA provides and the high caliber of people they employ. Joining the board is an opportunity to serve Cornerstone VNA, but also our community. Sustaining and expanding home-based services is vital to the health and well-being of individuals in need of care and their caregivers.”

 

Cornerstone VNA currently serves Rockingham, Strafford, Belknap and Carroll Counties in New Hampshire and York County in Maine. The team at Cornerstone VNA provides award-winning care and support through five distinct programs: Home Care, Hospice Care, Palliative Care, Life Care-Private Duty and Community Care. For 110 years, Cornerstone VNA has been committed to bringing services to people of all ages so that families can stay together at home, even when facing the challenges of aging, surgical recovery, chronic or life-threatening illnesses or end-of-life care. To learn more about Cornerstone VNA, visit www.cornerstonevna.org or call 800-691-1133.

 

Cornerstone VNA Receives Multi Year Grant

Cornerstone VNA Receives Multi Year Grant from New Hampshire Charitable Foundation

 

Rochester, NH: Cornerstone VNA is thrilled to announce they have received a $60,000 grant from the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. The grant, which will be paid in $20,000 installments over a three-year period, was made possible by gifts from the following fund(s): Charles and Aroline B. Greenfield Fund, Cocheco Fund, Edmond and Margaret Drouin Charitable Fund, Greater Portsmouth Rehabilitation Center Fund, Marcia G. Moody Fund, Robert and Alexandria Lowe Fund. This important funding will help further Cornerstone VNA’s mission to promote the optimum level of well-being, independence, and dignity of those living in the community by providing trusted, compassionate and expert health care.

 

This multi-year grant will be used in-part for a rehabilitation training platform that will provide standardized patient education for exercises and provide professional education for their rehabilitation therapists. Furthermore, it will support underfunded specialty programs, such as Lymphedema, and specialized training for clinicians, which is critical due to the increased level of care needed to support patients at home with complex medical conditions. Funding will also support access to care for those in need, as well as efforts to attract, retain and train skilled staff.

 

According to Julie Reynolds RN, MS, Cornerstone VNA President/CEO, “We are so very grateful for the Charitable Foundation funding, which will enable us to continue our important work with expertise and excellence. These funds impact our ability to keep our clinicians up to date with the newest trends in healthcare, and providing specialty services to our most vulnerable residents in NH.”

 

About Cornerstone VNA: Cornerstone VNA currently serves Rockingham, Strafford, Belknap and Carroll Counties in New Hampshire and York County in Maine. The team at Cornerstone VNA provides award-winning care and support through five distinct programs: Home Care, Hospice Care, Palliative Care, Life Care-Private Duty, and Community Care. For 110 years, Cornerstone VNA has been committed to bringing services to people of all ages so that families can stay together at home, even when facing the challenges of aging, surgical recovery, chronic or life-threatening illnesses or end-of-life care. To learn more about Cornerstone VNA, visit www.cornerstonevna.org or call 800-691-1133.

 

About the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation: The New Hampshire Charitable Foundation is New Hampshire’s statewide community foundation, founded in 1962 by and for the people of New Hampshire. We are the place where generosity meets the dedication and ingenuity of nonprofits and the potential of New Hampshire students. For six decades, thousands of people have entrusted their charitable resources to the Foundation, creating a perpetual source of philanthropic capital and making it possible for the Foundation to award more than $60 million in grants and scholarships every year. For more information, please visit www.nhcf.org or call 603-225-6641.

Skywatch

Skywatch on Tuesday, February 28, 6:30pm – 8:30pm – Presentation and Skywatch with NH Astronomical Society: Join us in the Lee Library program space for a short space-themed presentation. Then it’s off to Little River Park with telescopes and equipment to look at our night’s sky during our Sky-watch with NH Astronomical Society!

Lee Backyard Farming Initiative

Lee Backyard Farming Initiative presentation on Wednesday February 22, 7:00pm – 8:30pm at Misty Meadows: Join us every 4th Wednesday until April for Backyard Farming Fun! This month we will meet Donna-Lee Woods and Evan Mallett who will be talking about Fresh versus Aged foods! We will taste some delicious foods, share some recipes and have a lot of fun at Misty Meadows, 183 Wednesday Hill Road, Lee NH 03861!

Cornerstone VNA Celebrates 110 Years

Cornerstone VNA Celebrates 110 Years

 

Rochester, NH – January 2023, marks the 110th anniversary of Cornerstone VNA, a local nonprofit home health and hospice care organization serving Strafford, Rockingham, Belknap and Carroll Counties in New Hampshire and York County in Maine.

 

Cornerstone VNA is excited to celebrate its 110th year and is proud to look back on their impressive history of providing care at home.  In 1913, the Rochester Women’s Club, led by president and philanthropist, Norma Snow, and the Ladies Aide of the First Church Congregational founded the VNA to provide homecare services.  For more than a century, Cornerstone VNA has been committed to bringing services to people of all ages, so that families can stay together at home, even when facing the challenges of aging, surgical recovery, chronic or life-threatening illnesses or end of life care.  As a full-service home care organization, Cornerstone VNA provides award-winning care and support through five distinct programs: Home Care, Hospice Care, Palliative Care, Life Care-Private Duty and Community Care.

 

Julie Reynolds, RN, MS, President/CEO states, “I have proudly worked as a home care nurse since 1987 and joined Cornerstone VNA in 1994. I have experienced so much personal and professional growth in my time at Cornerstone VNA, and it has been an honor to lead this organization as the President/CEO for the past 10 years.” Julie continues, “Although we have grown tremendously in recent years, we still pay tribute to our founder and our remarkable history of providing high quality care to our patients and our community.”

 

Particularly in the last decade, Cornerstone VNA has experienced significant growth which earned them recognition as the Business NH Magazine 2020 Health Care Business of the Decade, as well as numerous other awards including most recently the Falls Chamber of Commerce 2022 Nonprofit of the Year, and the 2022 Best of the Seacoast Best Home Health Care.

 

As the region braced itself for the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Cornerstone VNA was well-prepared thanks to their ongoing emergency preparedness efforts. They continued providing care to patients and developed innovative ways to remain connected to their local communities. They also broke ground on an important capital project in October 2020 to expand their building and renovate their existing space to address the growing needs of their patients, staff, and community members. Over the years, Cornerstone VNA has remained proactive in its approach to researching and implementing innovative specialty services, including a remote telehealth monitoring program, to meet the complex needs of their patients to ensure positive outcomes.

 

With a staff of over 170 team members, Cornerstone VNA has a depth of longevity that is quite extraordinary. Sandy Powers, RN, has been a nurse at Cornerstone VNA for thirty-one years, and is known fondly by her patients as “Nurse Sandy”. Sandy remarks, “I’ve had various roles over the last 30 years, and it has been a wonderful ride with all of them. I’ve gained so much knowledge working as an RN in home care.”

 

From longtime nurse, Sandy, to recently enlisted team member, Megan Casey, RN, BSN, the positive feeling of being a nurse and working in home care is just as strong. Megan shares, “There’s something remarkable and rewarding about caring for patients in the home setting, often at their most acute and vulnerable states, and being part of an agency (family) that provides endless support and appreciation. I don’t just love what I do, I live for it.”

 

To learn more about Cornerstone VNA, visit www.cornerstonevna.org or call 800-691-1133. Visitors to the website can also learn more about Cornerstone VNA’s history by reading their historical blog posts, which will be posted each month throughout the year.

Rescheduled! Annual Moonlight Snowshoe or hike

Rescheduled! The Barrington Conservation Commission and Trails Committee invite you to come for its Annual Moonlight Snowshoe or hike on Saturday, March 4th at 7 PM. The hike will be held at a new location this year, the Merry Hill Road entrance to SELT’s Stonehouse Forest (about 0.7 miles from the intersection with France Rd. and Young Rd.)
 

Stonehouse Forest
Friday, 3 Feb, 7-9pm
~154 Merry Hill Rd (SELT Lot) 

Most of the hike will be on a wide woods road, but we’ll also venture into the woods, so we’ll experience both bright moonlight and the somewhat ‘spookier’ feeling of being in the woods at night.  

The walking will be easy, with only mild uphills, about two miles in length. Of course, extra care is always needed when walking a) in the winter and b) at night.  Let’s hope that there will be sufficient snow for it to be a snowshoe trek (it’s been too long since it was a snowshoe!) but we’ll just walk if conditions dictate.  Should it be a walk, there could be a good deal of ice, so footwear with extra traction (yaktrax, microspikes, etc.) is a good idea. Dress warmly enough for the conditions, and though we shouldn’t need them for the walk, bring a flashlight or headlamp. Please leave your canine companions at home.

If we get rained or snowed or even just ‘clouded’ out, we’ll try again March 4. Otherwise, there won’t be another chance for a public moonlit hike this winter.

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