County volunteer receives June Callwood award

Jean Algar

A Prince Edward County volunteer has been honoured for rising to challenges with grace and purpose.

Since 1995, Jean Algar has been a focused, dedicated advocate for hospice palliative care, serving on Hospice Prince Edward’s Community Visiting and Residential programs.

Algar has been named one of the 2015 June Callwood Circle of Outstanding Volunteers Award recipients.

The late June Callwood was a journalist, author and social activist. She founded or co-founded more than 50 Canadian social action organizations including youth and women’s hostels. She founded Casey House (a Toronto hospice for people with AIDS). Callwood was the first recipient of the award in 1995 and since then 560 inductees have received the honour.

Nominated by the hospices they serve, the volunteers exemplify the spirit and dedication of hospice palliative care, and are the driving force of the care provided each day throughout the province.

“Jean is a highly respected and much loved volunteer with our visiting hospice palliative care, and residential hospice programs,” said Birgit Langwish, President and Chair of the Board of Directors for Hospice Prince Edward.
“Her passion and energy for caring and comforting those at the end of life, and their loved ones, is inspiring and motivating for us all,” said Langwisch.

She described Algar as reliable, responsive, kind and non-judgmental and noted she is always up for any challenge, whether it be in providing support to individuals and families, advocating for public awareness, or contributing her talents and time to special events and fundraising.

“Volunteers are an essential element to the delivery of the visiting hospice palliative care program in Prince Edward County,” Langwish said. “It is an honour to congratulate Jean Algar for her outstanding volunteer efforts and her passion for the hospice palliative care program in our region.”

Algar joins an impressive group of previous Callwood Award winners, which includes fellow Hospice Prince Edward volunteers Pat Dye, Annette Gaskin, Stuart Brown, May Jackson, Margaret Stoddard, Marion Creasy, Susan McKay, Maggie Creighton, Moira Creighton, Mark Larratt Smith, Dorothy Mickael, Linda Jackson, Nancy Wilson, Phyllis Mabee and Wendy Davis.

In 1994, the Hospice Association of Ontario, now Hospice Palliative Care Ontario, established the June Callwood Award to acknowledge and thank outstanding hospice volunteers throughout Ontario.

Hospice Prince Edward is a non-profit, non-denominational charitable organization that provides physical, psychological, social, spiritual and practical support to people living with life-limiting illness and to their loved ones and caregivers, at no cost to the client or their family.