Greenwich Hospital Hosts Tree of Light Celebration

About 200 people gathered at Greenwich Hospital on Monday at the annual Tree of Light Celebration to benefit the Home Hospice Program.

The annual non-denominational event featured readings and music culminated with the lighting of an evergreen tree strung with hundreds of lights in memory or in honor of loved ones. The tree was lit by Maggie Reynolds of Greenwich, whose mother was a hospice patient.

Donations from the purchase of lights support the hospital’s Home Hospice Program, which provides end-of-life care to individuals, regardless of their ability to pay.

This year’s celebration included a welcome from Norman G. Roth, Greenwich Hospital president, and remarks by Donna Coletti, MD, medical director of Hospice and Palliative Care. Dr. Coletti evoked the memory of Betsy Corman, a longtime hospital volunteer, donor and friend of the hospital’s Hospice, Oncology and Palliative Care departments, who died in 2015.

Rev. Andrea Raynor, hospice program director, gave the invocation and Rabbi Asa Fradkin of Temple Shalom offered the benediction with teen musicians from the temple. The volunteer vocal group The Grace Notes performed.

The ceremony closed on the Garden Terrace with the lighting of the tree. The names of those remembered were entered into the Annual Book of Honor, which is on permanent display at Greenwich Library. The tree of light will remain on display on the terrace through December and will then be planted in the hospital’s Carl and Dorothy Bennett Community Garden.

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