Since 2007, The Hand to Heart Project (a program of NH-VT Palliative Services, a New Hampshire nonprofit corporation) has been providing the comfort of massage and compassionate touch to people with cancer, and to their caregivers. The program now covers approximately 100 towns in western New Hampshire and southeastern and southwestern Vermont. It was founded by massage therapist Steve Gordon of Cornish, NH, with the help of several friends. We work with people who are going through treatment for their cancer, and with people who have ended treatment and are approaching the end of life. We also offer the service to the caregivers of people with cancer. Since the day the program was launched, it has helped people find moments of physical and spiritual peace during extraordinarily difficult times. What’s more, the service is free, and is provided in the clients’ homes. "Every visit is like a small miracle of suffering made easier through healing touch and presence.” That is how one man described The Hand to Heart Project after watching one of our massage therapists work with his mother, who was dying less than two months after being diagnosed with cancer. This small miracle of touch is provided by massage therapists who between them have several decades of experience offering massage to people with cancer. Every year, we make hundreds of home visits, some of them to people who can get onto a massage table (we always have one with us) and receive what to most people would look like a standard massage, and some of them to people who cannot get onto a table and receive the hands-on work while in a chair or bed. While many of our clients are in treatment for cancer and hoping or expecting to be well again, we also have been with people in the last weeks, days, and even hours before death. Clients and their family members have told us often how much help the Hand to Heart home visits are; one woman said it was the most important connection she made after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer. People are referred to us by hospitals, visiting nurse agencies, churches and by members of the community who know someone who might benefit from a home visit. If you would like to make a referral, please contact us.
