The Memorial Foundation has announced that Art and Joanne Hall have donated $1 million to the Cottage in the Meadow project through the Fairweather Foundation. 

The Hall family is challenging the community to match their donation by Dec. 31, in honor of their late parents, Florence and George Hall.

Cottage in the Meadow will be constructed in phases, as funds become available.

The 22,000 square foot, 20-bed facility will become a home-away-from-home for terminally ill patients.  

When the $1 million pledge is met, The Memorial Foundation plans to move forward with the first phase of construction, possibly by next spring.  

Nationally, about 32 percent of hospice patients are not able to receive hospice care in their homes, often because they live away from family, have small children in the home, or are not able to accommodate special medical needs at home.  

Those patients end up spending their finals days in a hospital of nursing home, facilities not suited to treating terminally-ill patients. 

This will be the only in-patient hospice care facility in Yakima or Kittitas Counties.  

The local faith community and Hospice Steering Committee planted 200 trees in Fairweather Grove, where the facility will be built, at a special ceremony in June.