Gateway House of Peace Marks 10 Yearsof Providing End-Of-Life Care 

BALLSTON SPA — A decade ago, Gateway House of Peace opened the doors of its two-bed resident home with a dedication to provide a safe, comfortable, caring residence for terminally ill patients in need of a home during their final days. 

For residents, it is a peaceful, healing place where people and their families are provided compassionate and dignified care that supports the natural processes that occur in the final days of life. For those who work at the home, spending time with a person in the final days of their natural lives inspires life lessons of their own to carry onward. 

“It’s not something to be afraid of,” said Kathleen Graham, a volunteer member of the care staff. After becoming caregiver to her husband, who passed away six years ago, Graham says, “I felt like I was called to do this kind of work. And I’ve learned just to love people. Just to be there for them. To help them understand what is going on and to let them know I’m there to help them and love them and be with them.”

To Teresa Kessler, a licensed practical nurse of 20 years, it is a place where healing takes on an expanded definition. 

“For those with experience in working to help heal people, it is a different kind of healing involved,” Kessler says. “When you’re a nurse, the idea of healing means recovery. To get people better. Success is when someone is well, and they go home. With hospice that definition is kind of turned on its head. We aren’t looking any longer at the body recovering, but the healing still happens, and it happens for family members,” she says. 

“This idea of tending to the person – it’s not about the machines, it’s not about the paperwork or rules-and-regulations per se, it’s more about: What does this person need as far as care, and how do we best give that to this person in this particular time in their life?”  

Gateway House of Peace was founded by Joni Hanchett who incorporated the community support home for end-of-life care following her life’s desire to serve those in need, and after dedicating many years of volunteer work in hospice care. The Ballston Spa home was remodeled to offer ample space for families and friends to gather, a fully equipped kitchen for home cooked meals, and bedrooms designed with both privacy and accessibility in mind.

“I think my own formation happened in grade school and high school – I went to Catholic schools that influenced me to seek performing service in the community; to have a vocation not just a job,” Kessler says.  “Those of us who work in hospice have come to an understanding that’s a little outside the mainstream. For myself, I tend towards a Buddhist philosophy – the idea of the acceptance of suffering, and understanding what that is. It very much normalizes the process of what death is. And in the journey to that, being available for people to have a safe place to talk about some of these things that are very difficult should they want to. We get to know them. We get to know their family. It’s a privilege.” 

Gateway House of Peace does not receive any funding from the government or insurance reimbursements, relying solely on the grace of the community through donations, memorials, fundraising, grant writing, bequests and gifts. The organization’s 2024 Butterfly Ball held earlier this year raised more than $70,000 to support the mission of the home.  The organization also stresses that volunteers are the heart of the home, and that anyone interested in seeking volunteer opportunities or other information may do so via their website at: https://www.gatewayhouseofpeace.org/.

“I have a really strong feeling to be able to help people,” Graham said, “to help them pass peacefully and to be there for the families also.”  

“My intention is to provide an environment for someone to be their true self and have an accepting place of whatever it is they need and whatever it is they’re going through,” Kessler says, adding a quote by the late spiritual teacher, psychologist and writer Ram Dass. 

 “One of my favorite quotes by him is: ‘We are all just walking each other home.’ And I think that sums it up quite beautifully,” Kessler explains. “We’re walking with this person, and we’re just walking them home.”