Throughout nearly three-quarters of a century, the Parmenter Foundation has served the MetroWest community, evolving into a beloved end-of-life care and bereavement support organization.
The foundation began as a community health center in 1954 on Cochituate Road, offering immunizations, vision screenings and hearing screenings to the Wayland community.
The organization evolved alongside hospice care. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, nurses affiliated with the Parmenter Foundation began going directly to people’s homes, caring for elderly residents in the community rather than operating solely as a community health center.
“It became more of a visiting nurse association,” Executive Director of the Parmenter Foundation Angela Crocker said. “That was when healthcare was very different and then the organization morphed kind of the way healthcare morphed.”
In the late 1990s, the Miriam Boyd Parlin Hospice Residence was built. The building, separate from the Parmenter Foundation offices, is located on the grounds of The Residence at Paine Estate assisted living center and features 10 rooms for hospice patients.
“The nurses would go out and provide hospice care in the [patient’s] own home, but then they saw the real need to have a hospice residence,” Crocker said. “They planned for and built a hospice [care center] that now serves 10 hospice patients every day.”
The residence aims to create a home-like setting for hospice care without the cost of traditional residential care. A comfortable environment can ease the transition for both patients and their loved ones.
“What we often hear is that people wish they hadn’t waited so long,” Crocker said. “It’s a really hard decision for families to make, but hospice provides so much more support for not just the patient, but also the families.”
As a nonprofit organization, the Parmenter Foundation found it increasingly difficult to compete with larger hospitals. According to Crocker, this prompted the foundation to merge its services with Beth Israel Lahey Hospital in 2015.
In 2016, the foundation transitioned from directly serving patients to supporting programs at Beth Israel, the hospice residence and its bereavement resources, including Heartplay Children’s Bereavement Program and Camp Erin, a children’s bereavement camp in Boston.
“We continue to support those [the programs], even though they are owned by Beth Israel Lahey,” Crocker said.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Beth Israel Lahey closed the hospice residence, leaving the foundation to find a new partner. The foundation then partnered with Good Shepherd Community Care, a nonprofit hospice and palliative care organization in Wayland. With the organization’s support, the new Miriam Boyd Parlin Hospice Residence opened at 10 Green Way in Wayland. The residence was made possible in part by funding from the Parmenter Foundation.
The Parmenter Foundation offers a variety of resources to residents and their families. For example, Parmenter Foundation Communications and Program Manager Jennifer Siegal created educational videos to help people navigate loss. These videos explore a wide range of grief scenarios for all ages.
“[Siegal] has worked with videographers and grantees to really see where there were gaps in education and information, and to design some well written, well crafted, well designed videos that provide engaging opportunities for our community members,” Crocker said.
Established in 2000 by longtime MetroWest residents Mavis and Bill Efthim, the Dora Efthim Healing Garden offers a quiet space to reflect on loss next to the Parlin Hospice Residence. Wayland resident Susan Foley designed the garden.
Additionally, the foundation supports a range of grief counseling and care organizations through grants funded by donations. According to the Parmenter Foundation, it received $443,056 in donations in 2024 and awarded $450,887 to nonprofit organizations and programs in the MetroWest community.
Choosing grantees is often a thoughtful process, as the foundation looks for organizations and initiatives that benefit the community.
“We have a lot of criteria that we look for, but the two biggest pieces to even get through the door is that a potential grantee must serve the MetroWest community, and must serve the community in our mission area of end of life and bereavement,” Crocker said.
The UGrieve program of Parmenter
The Parmenter Foundation’s UGrieve program focuses on university students and how to cope with loss while away from home. According to the Parmenter Foundation, of the 18 million college students each year, more than 30% experience the loss of a parent, caregiver or sibling.
“As we were researching, we found out that as many as one in three college students lose a loved one during their college time, and they’re away from their community,” Crocker said. “It can be very isolating, particularly because other students who haven’t had a loss don’t understand and are very hesitant to engage.”
The program features an educational video series hosted by bestselling authors Rebecca Soffer and Colin Campbell. Soffer is the co-founder and CEO of Modern Loss, an organization that provides a space for people to talk about grief. Campbell is the author of books including “Finding the Words: Working Through Profound Loss With Hope and Purpose.” Both have extensive experience with grief and loss.
“We’re trying to educate all students on campus about what to say, what not to say, and how to support somebody if they’ve had a loss so that we’re not turning away from each other, we’re empowered to turn towards and support each other,” Crocker said.
The Parmenter Foundation has also partnered with the Jordan Porco Foundation through Fresh Check Day, an event held at colleges nationwide to promote student mental health. A UGrieve booth will be set up at the spring event.
According to Fresh Check Day, the program has reached 370 colleges in 45 states and engaged 250,000 students in conversations about mental health. With 272 programs in Massachusetts and more than 50,000 students impacted, it is one of the leading organizations focused on college mental health.
What Parmenter plans for the future
The Parmenter Foundation’s vision for the next five to 10 years is to refine the resources it offers and ensure the MetroWest community is educated on grief management and bereavement support.
“We are actually undergoing a strategic planning process right now, because we have just completed our previous strategic plan and we went above and beyond,” Crocker said. “We envision a community that compassionately supports one another through grief, loss and end of life, fostering a culture of empathy and connection.”