Giving is the secret to living fully while you are still alive
Joyce Stanton Greene began each day with a prayer, just as she did that morning when she suddenly realized something was terribly wrong. After being rushed to the emergency room at Moore Regional Hospital, she was taken to Chapel Hill where the doctors warned her family that "it didn't look good." Twenty-four hours later she was undergoing brain surgery.
Joyce didn't remember much of the weeks that followed, but surely her prayer was answered. "Father, I am well aware I can't make it on my own. So take my hand and hold it tight for I can't walk alone!" When Joyce returned to her home at the Country Club of North Carolina, she was overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support. "I am blessed with friends." Within a few months she was fully recovered. "The first place I went after my recuperation," she said, "was a Moore Regional Hospital Foundation Board meeting."
For two decades, Joyce generously gave her time as a volunteer at Moore Regional Hospital, and as a board member of the Hospital Auxiliary, the FirstHealth Hospice Foundation, and the Moore Regional Hospital Foundation. Through her philanthropy, Joyce made a true investment in life. Joyce's contributions to FirstHealth Hospice Foundation were recognized in November, 1998, at the Fourth Women's Health Care Forum when she was named a Women of Distinction. "She is," said Chuck Frock, "a shining example of the evolution of Hospice philanthropy."
In 2000, through the gift of a charitable trust, Joyce established the Joyce Stanton Greene FirstHealth Hospice Chaplaincy Endowment Fund to support Hospice Chaplains who are trained in a clinical pastoral education to assist patients and families-as well as Hospice staff and volunteers-with nondenominational spiritual counseling, available at any time of the day or night. "Those that can go and be with people who are dying are a blessing. To me grieving is tough. I have a note that I got after Brad died from Pam Hudson, the Hospice Chaplain, that I'll keep forever."
"I am very conscious of the plight of others and I want to do whatever I can within my power to be helpful. God has been good to me," Joyce said, "and I want to give back."
To learn more about planned giving opportunities such as Charitable Trusts through The Foundation of FirstHealth, please call our office at (910) 695-7500.
