Community Hospice & Palliative Care of Northeast Florida cut the ribbon June 11 on its $6 million Dorion Family Pediatric Center, a facility built to care for children with life-threatening illnesses and to support their families.
The project fulfills the dying wish of philanthropist George Dorion, who died in 2021. The center, in the Earl B. Hadlow Center for Caring at 4266 Sunbeam Road, is named for him and his widow, Dorothy “Dottie” Dorion. The Dorion family declined to disclose the amount of its donation.
“Their generosity has never been about recognition. It has always been about people,” said Mayor Donna Deegan, who said she has known Dottie Dorion for years.
When a child is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, it affects the entire family, said Phillip Ward, president and CEO of Community Hospice & Palliative Care of Northeast Florida.
“When you think about a child with medically complex conditions, that affects siblings, that affects the parents, the grandparents, everyone. So our care has never been focused just on the patient. It has always been on that larger extended family, and talking about the quality of life,” Ward said.
Although hospice is most often associated with the final stages of life, officials said the Dorion Center is built around quality of life. It offers caregiver and bereavement support, along with an exercise and play area designed for those in wheelchairs or with other mobility issues. A music program offers instruction on ukuleles, drums and other instruments and a recording studio lets patients and siblings create memories.
The center also gives adult caregivers a space to relax, meditate and meet with other families going through similar situations.
“It’s not just medical care, it’s making sure emotional, social, spiritual, physical — all of those needs are met, that there’s not isolation. They have an ability to come together relationally with others,” Ward said.
The Dorion Center is part of Community Hospice & Palliative Care of Northeast Florida, which has provided children’s care since 1985.
The building that houses the new center was constructed in 1995 and had been used for other purposes, Ward said after the ceremony.
“We demolished the front entrance, so that all of the machinery and all of the equipment could go into an area that used to be the courtyard, and so we’ve literally built a building inside of a building, and it has become the heart of our organization.”
The project took about 10 months, according to Buck Smoak of Auld & White Constructors.
“Basically, we had to lift all the trusses and all the HVAC equipment. We had to lift everything over the existing building to go in and drop it into the courtyard,” Smoak said.
Community Hospice & Palliative Care is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. The annual operating budget for its Community PedsCare program is about $2.1 million.
“May this center inspire other hospices across the country to do the same,” Dottie Dorion said during the ceremony. “To create a happy place for children, where they feel at home, and provide their caregivers the much-needed rest for themselves, knowing that their children are being well taken care of in a safe place.”