Changes on Caldwell Hospice Board of Directors

LENOIR, NC (December 9, 2016)…Retired banker James Sponenberg of Lenoir, former president and CEO of Parkway Bank/CertusBank, is the newest member of the Board of Directors for Caldwell Hospice and Palliative Care (CHPC).

“We are honored to have Jim once again join our board,” said Marc Carpenter, CHPC Board of Directors chairperson. “Jim knows and appreciates our organization, and we look forward to many years of service together.”

In addition to previously serving a term on the Hospice board of directors, Sponenberg is a long-term member of the Board of Directors for the Caldwell Hospice Foundation, Inc., having served since its inception in 1994.

Sponenberg recalls he was new in town more than two decades ago when the late John Forlines, a long-time champion of hospice care in Caldwell County and board member/treasurer of the board until his death, introduced him to the work of Caldwell Hospice.

In addition to serving with the Foundation and later on the CHPC board, Sponenberg notes he “felt the value of Caldwell Hospice in a personal way when my father spent the last few days of his life in the care of the wonderful people at Kirkwood.”

Sponenberg brings a wide range of experience and expertise to the CHPC board through both his professional and personal endeavors. Through the years he has been active in a number of non-profits and other efforts aimed at enhancing the quality of life in all facets of the community. He has served on the boards of Caldwell County Education Foundation, Inc., Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute, Caldwell Memorial Hospital Foundation, Caldwell 20/20, and the Caldwell County Chamber of Commerce.

Long time board member and Lenoir attorney Joseph C. Delk, III leaves the CHPC board after more than three decades and calls his work with Caldwell Hospice “one of the most rewarding and satisfying” community involvements in his life.

“We are grateful to Joe Delk for all his years of service and dedication to CHPC and to our board,” said Carpenter. “He has been with us through so much change and growth, and it is the commitment of dedicated people like him that has allowed CHPC to serve the community as it has all these years.”

Delk recalls he was recruited to serve on the board by long-time Caldwell Hospice advocate and Board Chair Emeritus Parker Williamson.

“Parker asked me to serve because the Board needed an attorney,” recalls Delk. Originally from Asheboro, Delk moved to Lenoir from Raleigh and went to church with Williamson.

In the beginning, Delk says he knew nothing about hospice care, but soon learned and helped shepherd the organization from its small beginnings in a Sunday school room at First Presbyterian Church through the development of a robust home care program, the building of the Stevens Patient Care Unit, the state’s first in-patient unit, and later the construction of the Forlines Patient Care Unit and the McCreary Family Professional Center located at the Jack and Shirley Robbins Center in Hudson.

Delk has also served as a deacon at First Presbyterian Church; secretary and vice chair of South Mountain Children’s Home Board of Directors; chair of the Salvation Army Board of Directors; president of Hibriten High School PTO; president and founder of the Hibriten Foundation; president of United Way of Caldwell County; and board member for the Caldwell Arts Council.

Caldwell Hospice has provided end-of-life care for Caldwell and surrounding counties since 1982. While approximately 95% of its patients receive care in their homes or in long-term-care facilities, the organization also provides care for its patients in hospitals and in its inpatient facilities: the six-bed Stevens Patient Care Unit at Kirkwood in Lenoir and the 12-bed Forlines Patient Care Unit at the Jack and Shirley Robbins Center in Hudson. The organization also provides consultative palliative care services for patients with chronic conditions that inhibit their day-to-day lives, as well as bereavement services to families following the patient’s death and through programs, education, support groups, etc., to anyone in the community who has lost a loved one to death.

Caldwell Hospice, the most experienced and only local, not-for-profit hospice care provider serving our area, is committed to providing quality, respectful end-of-life care to our community. For more information about Caldwell Hospice and Palliative Care, call 828.754.0101 or visit www.caldwellhospice.org or Facebook.