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Finishing Strong Award

The Washington Area Villages Exchange is proud to announce the winners of the 2025 Finishing Strong Award. The Finishing Strong Award was generously created and funded by Chris Palmer and Gail Shearer, of Bethesda, Maryland, in 2022. One or more winners may be named, up to a total of $5000. The goals of the award are to encourage more conversations and discussions about end-of-life issues, expand the long-term impact of our area Villages, and create programs that other villages across the nation could emulate.

Congratulations to the 2025 Finishing Strong Award winners!

Cheverly Village - Cheverly, Maryland

Dupont Circle Village - Washington, DC

Waterfront Village - Washington, DC

2025 Finishing Strong Award Winners - Program Details:

Cheverly Village (Cheverly, Maryland) will expand a program they initiated in 2023, “Peace of Mind-Navigating Life to the End.” This special interest group has been meeting to discuss issues around aging, death, and dying. Past topics included: downsizing, talking about death, appointing health care agents, writing advance directives and defining personal comforts. In 2025 they will use Joy Loverde’s The Complete Eldercare Planner as a discussion guide, providing 20 members with a copy of the book. The planners will be distributed and discussed initially at a restaurant lunch, followed in six months with another luncheon discussion on its usefulness. The workbook will be easy to use for family discussions. Sessions for 2025 include Hospice and Palliative Care, with the wider Cheverly Community (including young families) invited to participate; Getting started writing a memoir; Executors; and a Potluck with conversations about “Finishing Strong.”

Dupont Circle Village (DCV) (Washington, DC) is launching a 6-session program designed to help its members prepare for the final stage of life. This program provides a thorough and supportive approach, enabling participants to address end-of-life issues and planning with care and intention. It reflects DCV’s mission to connect members with vital healthcare information, services, and support. The sessions are: Starting with Getting Your Life in Order; Defining a Life Worth Living in its Last Chapter; Planning to Ensure a Good Death for You; Awareness of and Planning for Physical and/or Cognitive Decline; End of life options; and Options for Celebrating Lives Well Lived and for What to Do with the Body.

Waterfront Village (Washington, DC) will continue its series of classes related to end-of-life and future planning issues and adapt the workbook they created in 2024 called Future Framework: Getting your Ducks in a Row. Session topics include Overview and Self-Assessment, Living Light and Ready to Move, Staying Put Successfully, Nuts and Bolts of Emergency Preparedness, and End-of-Life Conversations and Documents. The workbook that goes with the sessions is set-up like a checklist so that people can be encouraged to take concrete actions. Each session has some handouts, including a Village provider resource list, decluttering check-list, password tracker, home safety checklist, and a File of Life magnet. The 2025 class will be offered virtually in February, and in-person in October and will be open to both Village members and members of the community.

2024 Finishing Strong Award Recipients:

Waterfront Village (Washington, DC) will offer three “Be Prepared and Get Ready” programs. First, they will give all their members a critical organizing document called the "Just in Case" plan. This will help members share critical information with their next-of-kin regarding their finances, their online platforms, and their devices. Second, a guest from the DC Department of Unified Communications will speak to their group zoom to help members understand the documents and personal items that ease the experience of emergency hospitalization. Finally, they will host a two-part writing workshop, based on the book "Four Things that Matter Most," where members can think through some of the relationships in their lives and how they want to leave these relationships. The village was awarded $1,200 for their project. For more information, contact Pam Troutman, Executive Director, ptroutman@dcwaterfrontvillage.org.

Valley Village (Harrisonburg, Virginia) will offer Death Cafés for all members. A Death Cafe is an open, small-group discussion about death and dying designed to increase awareness of death to help people make the most of their (finite) lives; and to share, hear, and explore one’s own and others’ ideas about death. The Cafes will be facilitated by a professional trained specifically for the event. All members will be encouraged to participate through an awareness raising program and invitations. The village was awarded $1,080 to carry out their program. For more information, contact Lorie Merrow, Board President, elemerrow@gmail.com.

Northwest Neighbors Connecting (Baltimore, Maryland) will offer a new series of discussions called BMore Prepared. These classes will include the guidance of an estate planner to provide practical assistance in making hard decisions, a chaplain to guide members through the emotional and spiritual feelings of leaving a legacy, and a social worker/educator to help pull it all together. The village was awarded $1,000. For more information, contact Anne Shimanovich, Aging in Community Program Director, ashimanovich@chaibaltimore.org.