Louisiana-Mississippi Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (LMHPCO)


“Proximity has taught me some basic and humbling truths, including this vital lesson: Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done. My work with the poor and the incarcerated has persuaded me that the opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice…The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned.”
--Bryan Stevenson, Attorney at Law, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption


KABF gave a second grant to The Louisiana-Mississippi Hospice and Palliative Care Organization in 2015. With that grant money, LMHPCO Executive Director Jamey Boudreaux was able to provide new and innovative services in the area of prison hospice. Mr. Boudreaux sent a month-by-month timeline of all the ways Kelly Ann Brown Foundation’s grant money helped him improve prison hospice services:
“LMHPCO is grateful to the Kelly Ann Brown Foundation for support of our PRISON HOSPICE SUPPORT PROJECTS in 2015. KABF support allowed Louisiana and Mississippi correctional healthcare staff to attend all of our education conferences in 2015, as well as provided funds for LMHPCO to provide staff and inmate hospice volunteer training and supportive services at the five Louisiana correctional and one Mississippi facilities.”

One example of the training that KABF helped to make possible was a three day intensive training for hospice chaplains at Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola. KABF underwrote 68% of this event, which brought together 72 chaplains from hospice agencies in both Louisiana and Mississippi, 10 chaplains from Louisiana Corrections, along with 12 hospice inmate ministers and hospice volunteers.

There are 4,575 prisons operating in the United States at last count with approximately 2.2 million people incarcerated. As countries go, Russia comes in second place with 1,209 prisons. According to California Prison Focus, “no other society in human history has imprisoned so many of its own citizens.”  
 
 With mandatory sentences and a “throw the book at ‘em” mentality, many people will grow old and die behind bars. Kelly Ann Brown Foundation is grateful for people like Jamey Boudreaux who daily provide compassion and care to the least among us. Like Father Bix and Father Roy, Mr. Boudreaux lives out the true meaning of Christ: “I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.” (Matthew 25: 36)

Click here to learn more about LMHPCO.