Empathy, home for patients goal of Hope Ball planners

The Hope Lodge’s dining room is where most of the sharing and caring happen for area cancer patients. 20th Century Club members like Martha Ellen Talbot (left) and Lisa Wright, co-chairmen for this year’s Hope Ball fundraiser, work hard to help the residents feel at home. Talbot says, “It’s just a beautiful mix of women.”
The Hope Lodge’s dining room is where most of the sharing and caring happen for area cancer patients. 20th Century Club members like Martha Ellen Talbot (left) and Lisa Wright, co-chairmen for this year’s Hope Ball fundraiser, work hard to help the residents feel at home. Talbot says, “It’s just a beautiful mix of women.”

The temporary residents at the Hope Lodge near the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences come from all across the state and the country. They're of different religions, political affiliations, races, backgrounds, ages. But they have one word in common.

Lisa Wright says, "We're all very different, but once you hear 'cancer,' we become the same."

Wright and Martha Ellen Talbot are both members of the 20th Century Club, a decades-old women's group that started out helping the Red Cross and USO and eventually turned into a cancer-centric service organization that owns and operates the lodge. The Hope Lodge provides no-cost housing and some meals for low-income cancer patients undergoing out-patient treatment nearby.

They call it a "hope away from home."

It's a personal issue for Talbot and Wright.

Both women are breast cancer survivors: Wright's mother and husband have also had cancer. They felt called to help others with the disease.

"I think it makes a difference when you've stood in those shoes," Talbot says.

"While cancer is devastating physically and emotionally, what a lot of people don't realize is the financial toll it takes on the patients," Wright says. "The way I looked at it was, if I can do anything to provide a little relief for the financial burden and some of the emotional burden, then that's what I would love to do."

Talbot and Wright are co-chairmen for this year's Hope Ball, the club's lone annual fundraiser to maintain and operate the lodge.

The club opened its first lodge in a historic house in the Quapaw Quarter in 1984. After more than 20 years, the club built a new, more modern and efficient facility on Maryland Avenue on land donated by UAMS in a 99-year lease. The current lodge opened in April 2011.

Patients must be referred by a social worker at their treatment center -- the lodge accepts patients from a variety of cancer treatment centers in the area, not just UAMS -- and must meet certain financial requirements to qualify. They must also live at least 40 miles away from their treatment facility.

Guest rooms at the lodge resemble upscale hotel rooms with two beds, two comfortable chairs, a mini-fridge and art on the walls. There's also a well-stocked library, a music room with a piano and a quiet garden courtyard in the center. Patients and caregivers can cook their own meals in the full kitchen.

But most of the community feeling is found in the dining room. That's where the residents gather for meals, games, devotionals or just to talk -- to share stories and tips with people who know and understand what they're going through.

It's also where the club members serve a healthy dinner three nights a week.

"We're very hands-on," Talbot says. "The members are very active."

Club members cook meals at home to take and serve to the residents, lead devotionals, play games, make smoothies some mornings and otherwise act as friends and a "home away from home" family for the patients and their caregivers.

"I was particularly sensitive about the financial impact on these patients and their emotional states," Wright says. "I do feel that we accomplish that. We help them financially, emotionally and spiritually."

There are about 100 active members at any given time and around 250 active sustainers. Members sign up for a seven-year term of service, although they're welcome to continue after that.

Then there are the Hope Angels.

The Angels are a group of girls, all juniors in high school, who commit to 25 hours of service alongside the 20th Century Club over the course of the year. This year, one-third of the 30 girls are on track to log more than 100 hours each.

"To be required to do 25 and to happily do 100, it's a big deal," Talbot says.

Wright adds, "They always go above and beyond. They're inspiring. They really are."

The Angels will be presented at the Hope Ball and will then have a father-daughter dance as part of the evening's program.

The ball actually began as a dinner and floor show, performed by first-year members and their husbands, back in the 1940s. That continued through the mid-1990s when it became more of a traditional gala, the Hope Ball.

As with many balls, the Hope Ball is an evening of drinks, dinner, auctions and music. This year, the Dallas-based dance party band The Jam Wows! will perform.

Wright, Talbot and the lodge's executive director, Elizabeth Clogston, say the dancing part of the night is always a lively highlight.

Clogston says people can expect "the dance floor to be very full until the band stops at midnight."

Overall, Wright says, "It is a celebration."

"And it is a party," Talbot says.

But it's more than that.

They'll also present a program on the Hope Lodge, including a testimonial video that's always a powerful part of the evening.

"For me, it's not only a celebration of another ball, another year of hard work, but that we're still providing that hope for these patients," Wright says.

Talbot says, "It definitely validates what we work on all year long."

Through ticket sales, auctions and the Fund-A-Night donation program where people can pay $50 to cover one night at the lodge for a patient and caregiver, the ball generally brings in an average of $400,000 in net proceeds. A portion of the money goes to build up the principal in an endowment fund and the rest goes to general operations of the lodge.

It shows how much the lodge is needed that it stays at least 90 percent full most of the time. Often, there's a waiting list. And for the people who do stay there, it's more than a roof over their heads and a few meals.

"There's a lot of good conversation and a lot of praying and a lot of hand-holding and compassion that flows through these walls," Wright says.

Talbot agrees.

"You can have beautiful rooms and you can have all the amenities. But you can't always create a sense of community. This is a place of community. That's a beautiful part of this lodge and this mission."

The Hope Ball is at 6 p.m. March 3 in the Statehouse Convention Center's Wally Allen Ballroom. Tickets are $250 plus service charges, available online through Tuesday and by phone after. Call (501) 907-1760 or visit hopeawayfromhome.org.

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Lisa Wright (left) and Martha Ellen Talbot show off one of the comfortable guest rooms at the 20th Century Club’s Hope Lodge. The women are co-chairmen for this year’s Hope Ball fundraiser but there are many ways members can serve. Talbot says, “It’s wonderful that there’s flexibility within the group that you can find what speaks to you and give.”

High Profile on 02/18/2018

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