Our Mission
The core mission of Life & Death Wellness is to positively change the experience of dying and caregiving through education, support and providing practical tools to make thoughtful decisions that inspire life, especially at its end.
We are an empowerment center and community resource for living well, no matter what stage of life one finds themselves.
We believe that true health is not just defined by the physical body and that those living with serious, chronic or even terminal illness have the capacity for holistic wellness and often teach us all those tools through their resilience in life and death.
Your Community Is Your Educator.
Make no mistake, the nonprofit is not just about death but about embracing life. It is about a community supporting and learning from one another. The doors (even the virtual ones) are open to anyone who has something to teach which will empower others to live and die their best lives.
Workshops and webinars with community collaborators have addressed such topics as end-of-life options, advance care planning, community caregiving, end-of-life doula training, preparing advanced directives and wills, green burial, home funerals and much more.
Our Vision
Our vision is to create a safe and open space both physically and virtually where education on all life matters, but especially our end, can be discussed and supported without fear or shame.
Our vision is to provide and organize a well-trained community of caregivers so that all members of the community in need can be supported irregardless of finances or disabilities.
Our Purpose
Our purpose is to ensure rural communities that tend to be marginilazied the most when it comes to overall basic health care have access to resources and education in all critical health matters, but especially those addressing our final chapter of life.
Who We Serve
We are able to serve anyone that wants to learn virtually about Life & Death matters with our free educational webinars. There are no limits on borders just bandwidth.
We are located in the North Hawaii region of Hawai’i Island, where we provide local community support.
We physically serve the rural community of North Kohala on Hawai’i Island that is economically strained and ethnically diverse. Our underserved region has a large elderly population of Native Hawaiian, Asian and Pacific Islander descent.
Our immediate service area is significantly lacking in basic health care, palliative care & advance care planning programs due to lack of adequate health care providers and services.
Our region also has no inpatient hospice or affordable assisted living facilities. There is one small, longterm care facility that usually stays full at maximum capacity.
We are the only organization in Hawai’i that provides educational support as well as physical and holistic support with trained end-of-life doulas (EOLD) and community volunteers with medical oversight. We provide a missing yet pivotal service to our isolated community.
We are hopeful that as our programs are implemented fully, accepted and sustainable that they can be reproduced throughout other rural communities in the state of Hawai’i to benefit even more marginalized community members.
Our Board
President - Dr. Charlotte Charfen
Dr. Charlotte Charfen attained her medical degree from the Medical University of South Carolina before heading to Bolivia, where she found an appetite for emergency medicine. She went on to complete her emergency medicine residency at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, one of the toughest inner-city programs in the country. With two decades of ER medicine under her belt, she is passionate about wellness- in life and death.
She is convinced addressing our mortality in addition to nutrition, physical, mental, and spiritual poise are the keys to thriving in our challenging society. She helped found the North Hawaii-based nonprofit organization, Life & Death Wellness and works as an emergency physician at Kohala Hospital and Kona Community Hospital on the Big Island of Hawaii. She also helps patients across the island and state on all end-of-life options and palliative support through her private practice in North Hawaii and telemedicine.
Vice President - Bobbi Bryant
Volunteering for hospice in three states and working for two hospice organizations allowed Bobbi an intimate view of death and dying. She witnessed the difficulties dying people and their caregivers experience and how hospice provides one of the best models of care for people at the end of life. To further support the dying, Bobbi created the first end-of-life doula training program for a hospice in Hawaii.
In May of 2017, Bobbi founded Inspired Endings and facilitates end-of-life doula training programs for our community in Hawaii and worldwide. One of the most important lessons she has taken to heart is not so much about what to do, but more importantly about how to “be” with the dying.
Bobbi has been living and loving on the Big Island since 2012, where you will find her walking amidst the raw beauty of Hawaii, swimming in the ocean blue and riding her motorcycle Kali around the glorious island she is grateful to call home.
Secretary/Treasurer - Eddy Cash-Dudley
E. F. CASH-DUDLEY attended University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. Eddy taught at Lawrence Drivon School of Law in Stockton, CA for many years and retired from her California law firm with esteem, in 2014.
Eddy took the Hawai’i State Bar Examination in 2007 and was sworn in to the State Bar of Hawai’i in 2008, preceding her move to the Big Island of Hawai’i in 2014.
Seeing the need for low cost estate planning documents, Eddy started preparing Last Wills and Testaments and Advance Health Care Directives for seniors. Estate planning includes: Last Will and Testament, Advance Healthcare Directive, Durable Financial Powers of Attorney, Revocable Transfer on Death Deed, and Trusts. She has expanded her family law practice to include adoptions, custody, and paternity cases.
Eddy is married to an animal nutritionist and has three children, seven grandchildren and seven granddogs. She has offices in Waimea and Captain Cook.