The challenge
Oceanside Hospice Society serves families spread across Vancouver Island, a geography that makes in-person bereavement support difficult to deliver consistently. With families often dispersed across remote communities, the team needed something that could travel with families, rather than requiring families to travel to receive support.
In addition to geography challenges, Oceanside Hospice Society relies on a small part-time team available to care for bereaved families and caregivers across all of Oceanside. They found it hard to deliver In-person check-ins, phone follow-ups, and printed mailers to all the families looking for support. Like many other hospice teams, Oceanside staff recognized that grief doesn’t wait for business hours, and doesn’t care how far someone lives from the nearest support group. Recognizing that they couldn’t deliver care manually to all the families in their community, Executive Director, Mandy Levesque, began looking for ways her small team could deliver more care, without sacrificing quality or human connection.
The solution
In July 2025, Oceanside Hospice Society launched bereavement support through Help Texts, an expert-written text messaging service that delivers expert, clinically sound grief support, personalized to each family’s loss type, relationship, cause of death, and time since loss.
Mandy said:
Help Texts stood out as a natural fit for Oceanside. We love that their tool is built specifically for grief support, is accessible by text message from anywhere, and includes built in tips and date reminders for friends and family who want to support their grieving loved ones. While some of our other programs and services are delivered over a shorter timeframe, the ability to offer Help Texts support for 12 months is a significant benefit to our clients and our organization.
The results
Strong retention and accelerating growth.
Since launching in July 2025, Oceanside Hospice has seen consistent month-over-month enrollment growth, with a 94.6% active rate.
Here's what a few of Oceanside's grieving family members said about receiving text support
100% of respondents found Help Texts’ content helpful.
Just what I need to hear. Plus I love that they are personalized. It’s nice to see my name and my husband’s name.
— Melanie, Grieving widow
I found the positive reinforcement about knowing what I’m going through is all very ‘normal’ in the grieving process.
— Cindy, Grieving sister
They have helped me understand more about my grieving process and what to expect as time goes by. Most importantly it’s taught me what I was never taught as a child — that it’s okay to talk about it. Thank you very much for the text messages.
— Kenn, Grieving widower
It has helped me deal with the overwhelming pain that I didn’t want to face. It reminds me to do healing work which is very much needed. I know if I stuff it down and avoid it that it hits me like a freight train.
— Janet, Grieving mother
It’s nice to feel supported randomly and unexpectedly — and I forward them to another family member.
— Margot, Grieving mother-in-law
Why it works
The science behind text-based grief support
Help Texts is built on a simple insight: grief support works best when it’s easy to receive. For families already managing the weight of loss, low friction is everything.
Our published hospice research shows a 95% satisfaction rate, with even higher ratings among men and people over 65, two populations historically underserved by traditional bereavement programs. 86% of subscribers continue receiving texts for a full year, indicating not just initial uptake but sustained engagement over time.
Help Texts helps Oceanside deliver consistent outreach to bereaved families, while meaningfully lightening the administrative load for their team.