Our story
A church basement, a borrowed phone and a promise to sit up with neighbors.
Our story
Theresa Kovacich's mentor, a parish nurse named Rose Vitt, started Little Balkans Hospice with a borrowed phone line in the basement of a church on Locust Street. The phone rang in her kitchen at night. She answered every call.
Southeast Kansas has been called the Little Balkans since the coal camps, when miners from Croatia, Slovenia, Italy and a dozen other places settled here. Rose named the hospice for the neighbors she was serving.
Families kept saying the nights were the hardest. So we built a dedicated night team: nurses who sleep during the day and work while everyone else is afraid. It's still the thing we're proudest of.
We moved into an old house on North Broadway with a big kitchen and a family room. The grief supper started there the first winter, and it hasn't missed a Wednesday since.
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A hospice nurse answers every hour. Ask anything; nothing is decided until you're ready.