225BatonRouge.com

Sure they look quaint downtown for the season, but there’s more to those Leland Cypress trees. For the past three years, the nonprofit Hospice of Baton Rouge has held its Trees of Light ceremony as a memorial service while helping to support its Patient Care Fund. Friends and families make donations by purchasing lights of tribute for loved ones. Proceeds go to Hospice’s non-funded patients and the eight-bed inpatient unit, the Butterfly Wing. They aren’t individual lights, but collective strands. The three trees were set to go up Nov. 30 and will come down the week after Christmas.

In previous years, it’s been one lonesome tree reigning tall. So why the plural “Trees of Light?” Ah-ha! You probably didn’t see the other two trees. Every year there’s a smaller tree decorated with ceramic butterflies in the Butterfly Wing on Essen Lane and another lit tree at Hospice’s offices on Siegen Lane. It wasn’t a case of false advertising. And don’t worry. They’re grown locally in Zachary at Christmas Forest and are recycled.

The idea came to Kathryn Grigsby, executive director, through a director in Pennsylvania who suggested the program to support the organization after the hurricanes in lieu of sending staff or supplies. Entering its 23rd year, Hospice assists more than 600 patients a year, providing end-of-life care and support in a home or homelike setting.

Mayor Kip Holden and Rev. Greg Daigle will be on hand at 5:30 p.m. Dec. 2 to light the tree and reflect on the lights in our lives that continue to shine in person or in memory. To donate or find out more, visit hospicebr.org. It’s how I’m going to finish strong, and it could be a way for you to help, too.

Thanks to Julia Aycock, donor relations coordinator for Hospice of Baton Rouge, and to fellow 225 staffer Brandi Simmons for enlightening me about this program.