Mari Ulrich
Thank you for having me. Hi everyone. My name is Mari Ulrich, and I’m the Associate Director of Development for PALTOWN, and it’s an honor to share a few minutes with you about something meaningful that we offer in our community, which is our In Memoriam pages. These pages are gentle, lasting tributes, and they honor loved ones, and at the same time, they give back to the community as well that supported them. These pages exist primarily because folks came actually to the organization and asked, how can we give back? And so one of the most powerful aspects of COLONTOWN is how deeply it supports people during treatment, caregiving and beyond. So when someone asks, when a loved one passes, how can we honor them? I’m going to scroll down here, how can we honor them, and how can we give back to the place that meant so much to them during their journey. So our In Memoriam pages were actually created organically as a response to that, as a response to that question. So what they are, it’s a personalized tribute page on the PALTOWN site, so friends and family can share a favorite photo, a short remembrance or a story. It’s a permanent place, so the pages will stay online forever and can be revisited anytime. Families can update or add memories later. And donation options are included, and gifts directly sustain COLONTOWN’s programs that supported these members during their time with us. So I created a sample page here. This is what the sample page might look like, and it basically says: In loving memory of your loved one. And it will have some photos at the top. Throughout, there can be some text in here talking about their family life, any sort of milestones, the disease, any sort of strength and optimism, really. The script, whatever you want to put in. The copy is really up to the family and the friends who want to put this page together. The photos also can be selected from however the family and friends would like it to go up. And, like I said, it can be modified at any time, and it’s just a nice, long, lasting tribute. It is not searchable on the PALTOWN site, so it’s not going to be something that you will come across unless you have a direct link to this site, but it is something where if somebody you know within your circle wants to revisit it on a regular basis, they have the ability to, like I said, it’ll be up forever. And then at the bottom, there is a donation option where you can donate in memory of your loved one, just talking about the support that COLONTOWN gave to this individual during their during their time with COLONTOWN. So why this matters is because these pages are going to be, obviously, more than just websites, kind of like Daniel was saying, it’s like, you want this person to have their memories and their stories told. So it’s a nice place for that to happen, to have meaningful spaces for families and for the community, it’ll be a great place for a legacy so your loved one’s story lives on and is a permanent connection, where families and friends and communities can revisit and share a place to give back. Donations will sustain COLONTOWN for future patients and caregivers, and it creates that nice circle of care. So remembrance, giving back and sustaining community, and I’ve actually created a number of these, and one family shared how comforting it was just to have this loved one’s page at a memorial service that they could send out to folks so friends who couldn’t even attend, the memorial service could still visit, see the photos, and donate in the honor of that loved one. They told us that extended the circle of remembrance well beyond just that one day. It may be somewhat similar to other pages that you see online. I know that there are other services that may be for treatment updates or just right after the person passes. Sometimes funeral homes might offer something similar, that are linked to obituaries and maybe offer more of a temporary service. But I just want to say again that these pages, we don’t ever plan to take them down, and they are tied to COLONTOWN, and they are shareable. And of course, if you ever want to make any updates, those can be made at any time. If there are any new photos or funny stories or memories, then those can also be updated, sometimes within the first few days of a person passing they want this page to go up right away, and oftentimes a couple of weeks later, they’ll have a little bit more time to think about. – Okay, I want to say something different. Or, – I was kind of in the middle of a lot of chaos initially, and now that this has that, I want to update it. And all of that is doable through our In Memoriam pages. So this last slide is just the step by step. The first thing that the friend and family might do is to email [email protected] and they can send any desired photos and short text copy. We can really work with anything. So if you don’t have too much and you just want to get the page started, we can definitely do that. And we can start to fill in some gaps. We can create the paragraph for you, if you just want to give us the bullet points, that’s 100% okay. And we will design the page and publish the page. Families can make any edits as they desire. Families, would then receive the link to share, and the page lives on forever, and updates are welcome at any time. But hopefully that’s a good overview of the services that we offer for the In Memoriam pages. And I do feel like it has been just a nice reprieve for a lot of our families to be able to go back and visit. So thank you.