What is Catholic Comfort Care Homes (CCCH)?

CCCH is a 501c3 which was founded in September of 2022 by Kim Derrick. Kim Derrick worked as a registered nurse in the hospice field for over 11 years. Through her first hand experiences, she witnessed time and time again, the disparities of the underserved who had been given a terminal diagnosis and were in need of hospice care. Medicare and other insurance agencies do not pay the cost of room and board. Nor do they pay for dependent care needs of the hospice patient.

CCCH is a response to an ever growing need in our community. The nonprofit organization creates and manages homes throughout Middle Tennessee. These homes are peaceful and home-like for the residents who call them home for the remaining days or weeks of their life. 

Over the last two years, CCCH has managed a pilot project at 200 Thompson Lane. The home is called Heart of Mary House. This is a 900sq ft, 2 bedroom home. They have cared for 31 individuals with a terminal prognosis. The need for expansion grew very quickly, as 5 to 10 terminally ill people are turned away each week due to space constraints. The overall experience has been exceptional and extraordinary! The home rotates caregivers for 3, 8-hour shifts each day. Volunteers are welcomed and encouraged to be involved, as well. 

The Residents who are served in the home do not pay anything for their stay or the 24/7 care. No payments are received from insurance. No government funding is received to operate the homes. The homes are funded through private donors and businesses. 

The CCCH are not medical facilities and a license is not required. Medical care inside the home is provided by each Resident’s hospice team, which is overseen by their hospice Medical Director. The caregivers in the home become like family for the Resident, and they care for their needs much like a family member would do if the Resident were at their actual home.

Each Resident is:

• under the medical care of a hospice agency
• has a DNR
• has a prognosis of three months or less.

God planted a seed in Kim’s young heart to accompany and care for the sick and dying as an adult.

Kim was raised in a family in which the members surrounded one another in all the joys and sorrows of life, including death. She didn’t realize until adulthood that this was not every person’s experience.

As a hospice nurse it broke Kim’s heart that there were so many people poor and dying who had nowhere to go.

With the help of Saint Edward Church in Nashville, TN and others who shared in her desire to help the poor and dying, Kim created “The Heart of Mary House” to love God’s children during their final days as Our Blessed Mother would want.

This compassionate episode is about a woman who Mary Anne grew to love and yet never heard speak her name. It’s about a broken medical system that truly left this woman completely desperate and at death’s door. Yet, when all options were completely exhausted, a simple basement full of love in Nashville Tennessee was sent via a special friend in Oklahoma.

Though the basement is simple, the love of Christ oozes out of every cinder block in those three large rooms. Mary Anne describes how she sees the hands and feet of Christ from the moment she walks in. He is there. The heart of heaven resides in that small basement on Thompson Lane.

This Dementia Doula is forever changed and honored to have cared for this special friend and her family. Life and death will never look the same way again. In those final nine days, even in death, Mary Anne’s friend showed her what life is truly about. This is what genuine compassion looks like. This old song says it best:

“ What the world needs now is love, sweet love

That’s the only thing that there’s just too little of…”

Except for a small basement on Thompson Lane in Nashville, it’s full of that love!

This week’s episode is part two of episode 25 of the Aging, Angst & Alleluias Podcast “A Dementia Doula’s Blessing from the Basement.”  Experience the “alleluias” from that nine-day stay in the basement for host, Mary Anne Oglesby-Sutherly’s special friend, Diane. This is a resource of magnitude for those living with dementia and those at the end of life.

Kim Derrick, Founder and Director of The Heart of Mary House in Nashville, TN. shares her exceptional story with a happy ending about her mission to help those at the end of life find a peaceful, loving environment to make their sacred passage.  Her mission in life as a hospice nurse led her to find a different approach to caring for those who had nowhere else to turn. Kim’s heart, her care and her mission is truly comforting and compassionate for her patients and their loved ones. The Heart of Mary House is changing how end of life looks for those in desperate need, coming from a simple oasis in a cinder-block basement.

As volunteers and residents alike enter through the bright blue door of the new hospice house on the campus of St. Edward Church and School, they are entering straight into the “Heart of Mary.”

St. Edward is partnering with hospice nurse Kim Derrick, founder and director of ministry for the Heart of Mary House, to see the answer to a long-time need come to fruition…

Conversations with Kim Derrick

The Heart of Mary House is the first home started by Catholic Comfort Cares Homes, a local non-profit that I started in September of 2022. Our homes are for the dying poor in our community. We house and provide 24/7 care at zero cost to the resident or their family. We do not bill insurance, nor do we accept any government funding. We are 100% donation based and rely on the generosity of volunteers to supplement the round-the-clock care that we provide.