Navigating life’s final transitions is a profound, and often perplexing experience. For Christina Owen, this reality sparked a deep desire to transform how we approach end-of-life care. Through Eleventh Hour Ministries, Owen has cultivated an organization built entirely on making friends and serving individuals during their greatest times of need, operating on a unique, donation based model.
The Spark: Identifying a Crucial Gap in Health and Hospice Care
Eleventh Hour was born from a deep understanding of the medical field, shaped by Owen’s impressive 27-year career in health and hospice care. Starting her professional life at the age of 19, she has gained extensive experience working in the prehospital and emergency setting, acute and post acute care after nursing school, and ultimately dedicating the last six years to hospice care. Throughout her career, she noticed a critical and heartbreaking gap: patient care had become increasingly depersonalized, leaving people to navigate complex diseases, medications, and the health and hospice care system without necessary support and knowledge.
She recognized that the greatest shortfall within hospice was that death was rarely normalized or openly discussed, leaving families feeling uncertain and lost.
The turning point arrived when the nonprofit hospice she worked for was partially bought out by a for-profit entity, a commercialization of care that infuriated her and changed her perspective entirely.
A Mission of Holistic Compassion
The guiding philosophy of Eleventh Hour Ministries is clear and heartfelt. The organization’s formal mission statement is “to love and serve others as they navigate life changes, aging, death, and grief by providing holistic community centered wellness education, support, and advocacy”. To bring this mission to life, their programs are beautifully structured around the guiding mantra: “age well, live well, die well”.
The community integration for the “live well” and “age well” programs has seen incredible recent growth, expanding ten fold since this time last year. By prioritizing relationship-building over utilizing rigid contracts, the organization trusts that financial support will arrive when the time is right, allowing them to focus entirely on the self identified needs of each individual community.
Triumphs in Tenderness: A Defining Success Story
The true impact of Eleventh Hour’s work is best illustrated through the lives they touch. One of their most profound early successes involved guiding a “die well” client and her family through the end-of-life and after death care process. The client’s family was deeply struggling to accept the client’s natural decline, frequently rushing her to the hospital out of a desperate desire to fix the “problem” and maintain her life.
Stepping in with immense compassion, Owen educated the family about the dying process, helping them understand that the client was experiencing a normal transition rather than a medical problem to be cured. She held space for their immense grief and successfully advocated for access to hospice care instead of continuing a stressful cycle in the hospital system. Owen stayed by the family’s side, guiding them through their hospice experience, sat bedside vigil in the final days, and after the client’s death, she even assisted with customary after death rituals and ceremonies. She ensured the family had the precious time that they needed to facilitate their grief. After a period of time, Owen organized a beautiful memorial at the Sigal Music Museum as requested by the family. This deeply personal support resulted in a founding donation for the nonprofit and forged an ongoing, cherished relationship with the family.
Growing Together: Navigating Organizational Development
As Eleventh Hour Ministries continues to blossom, the leadership team is thoughtfully exploring ways to expand their impact. While navigating the development of a nonprofit naturally presents growing pains, the organization embraces these as beautiful opportunities for collaborative growth. Currently, they are actively looking to enrich their dedicated board of directors.
With an incredibly supportive board already in place, they are eager to engage in strategic board casting to attract additional mission-aligned individuals. The organization is enthusiastically seeking collaborative visionaries who are passionate about prioritizing the “We” of the community over any individual ideas or personal agendas. This positive momentum in leadership development is setting the stage for sustainable, long-term success.
Looking Ahead: Expanding the Community’s Reach
The future is bright and full of exciting developments for Eleventh Hour. Their immediate focus is on community outreach and building an educational hub. They will soon be hosting an open house on May 7th at their new office in Greenville, an evolving space that will serve as a “touchable resource center”. Here, the community will be able to attend events, check out educational books, and engage in meaningful, face-to-face conversations about end-of-life care. The organization is also coordinating engaging events for the community, such as Five Wishes presentations, and Death Over Drafts at local breweries.
While the organization’s initial three-year goal was to open “The Evelyn”—a social model hospice home designed for the unhoused, those with addiction challenges, or individuals without able-bodied caregivers—they have thoughtfully adjusted their timeline. Recognizing the immense logistics and funding required, The Evelyn remains a beautiful long-term goal that will be pursued as the community’s awareness and resources continue to grow. For now, the focus is right where it needs to be: establishing a strong educational foundation, nurturing genuine relationships, and ensuring that no one has to walk the path of aging, death, and grief without necessary support and knowledge.
Be sure to check out our upcoming episode of the UpState Press Podcast featuring Christina Owen from Eleventh Hour Ministries. To find out more information about how Eleventh Hour can help you, or to volunteer, click the button below to contact them directly.
