SALISBURY – Coastal Hospice & Palliative Care announced this week a major gift to its campaign to build Coastal Hospice at the Ocean, as the Humphreys Foundation, Inc. of Ocean City has invested $300,000 to support the project.

The Community Room will be named for Edward H. Hammond, Jr., in commemoration of the gift. It will be integral to the outreach function of Coastal Hospice at the Ocean. The Community Room will be available to community groups in need of a meeting space when it isn’t in use for bereavement support groups.

The projected cost to build Coastal Hospice at the Ocean is $5 million, and with the Humphreys Foundation, Inc. gift, the total raised toward the project to date is $3.3 million.

“We are honored to be able to add Mr. Hammond’s name to the hospice residence and outreach center,” said Alane Capen, president of Coastal Hospice. “Mr. Hammond was known as a dedicated historian and supporter of the Berlin community. It’s a privilege to have Dr. Humphreys’ name on our library and now Mr. Hammond’s on the Community Room.”

Coastal Hospice at the Ocean will be a hospice residence and outreach center to be built in Berlin. It will address a growing and unmet need here: a residence for hospice care for patients who are not able to stay in their homes safely during their final days.

When built, Coastal Hospice at the Ocean will feature a home-like atmosphere for residents. It will also serve as headquarters for the hospice team that cares for 40 to 60 patients in their own homes each day in Worcester and Somerset counties. In addition, Coastal Hospice at the Ocean will offer palliative care clinics (to treat the physical, emotional and spiritual pain that comes with serious illness), and facilities for grief support and community education.

This is the foundation’s second gift to the campaign. In 2012, it made a pledge of $100,000 to Coastal Hospice at the Ocean. Humphreys Foundation, Inc. was founded by Dr. Mary E. Humphreys and, until his death, Hammond served on the board. The foundation has generously supported local community services. Humphreys mentored many women in the sciences in her years on the biology faculty of Mary Baldwin College, where she taught biology, botany and genetics. She returned to Berlin when she retired, in the 1960s, and was a well-loved member of the community.