CORPORATE VOLUNTEER WINNER
Kate Langdon
Project manager, Mortara Instrument
For 25 years, Milwaukee-based Horizon Home Care & Hospice has been dedicated to optimizing health and quality of life services for patients and families in the community.
Employees and volunteers with the organization become connected to providing patient-centered care in an in-home setting.
Kate Langdon, project manager at Cedarburg-based Mortara Instrument, has exemplified what it means to live those values, as well as the characteristics that bring comfort and peace to patients at Horizon.
Landgon serves as one of Horizon’s Final Hours volunteers. She is asked to be a source of physical and spiritual peace to patients nearing the end of their lives.
Final Hour volunteers take action when a patient has been given 72 hours or fewer to live.
She is responsible for providing emotional, social and respite support for hospice patients and their families during times of deep need and often, pain.
Hospice volunteers must have tremendous compassion and sensitivity and she regularly demonstrates a level of emotional intelligence that is unrivaled among the organization’s volunteers.
“Volunteers are the lifeblood of Horizon,” said Mary Haynor, president and chief executive officer of Horizon Home Care & Hospice. “Without them, many patient services would not be delivered the way they are today.”
This past year, Langdon has generously given at least 10 hours per month of her time, often with only a few hours’ notice.
According to Jason Whittington, volunteer services manager at Horizon, patients play an important role in Langdon’s life, as well. She has a unique ability to know what and when to communicate with patients and their families.
She is careful not to overstep boundaries and has a true commitment to supporting patients in their final days, he said. She gives the gift of memories to families as she shows them how to interact with their loved one who is passing away.
Hospice nurses have started to request Langdon by name to visit their patients because of the powerful impact she has had on the community and the families she cares for.
