Pamela Thornton recently checked her daughter Geneva’s Facebook page and found it littered with messages from friends — sweet remembrances and words of thanks for lessons imparted by the younger Thornton to peers.

“It’s like she’s still present, in a sense,” said Thornton of her late daughter. “She was just an extraordinary young woman, beautiful inside and out …”

Geneva succumbed to a rare form of cancer nearly two years ago at age 22. She spent her final months under the care of staffers at Hospice Atlanta, a program of Visiting Nurse Health System.

That is why Thornton, recalling the positive impact of those workers on the situation, gave a ringing endorsement of Visiting Nurse.

The nonprofit provider of healthcare and hospice-at-home services is gearing up for its annual “Big-To-Do” benefit Feb. 12, from 3 to 6 p.m. Proceeds will go toward support services for pediatric hospice patients.

The benefit, which has been at Zoo Atlanta the last 20 years, will be at Snow Mountain at Stone Mountain Park this year.

Organizers are billing the family event as an “exciting” snow adventure, including the thrill of tubing down Snow Mountain, making snowman, climbing through snow tunnels and the like.

“I think the most heartwarming thing [from previous years] is that it’s been a culmination of people, who are helping in whatever capacity they can,” said Lisa Robinson, vice president of advancement at Visiting Nurse Health System.

“We bring out patient families, but then our own clinicians come out and support us as well as the donors who make this work possible.”

Geneva Thornton came to be under Hospice Atlanta’s purview after having waged a lengthy battle with synovial cell sarcoma, a condition resulting in soft-tissue tumors near the joints and other areas of the body. She was initially diagnosed while an honor student at Atlanta’s Frederick Douglass High School back in 2005.

Geneva, whom her mother described as the “funniest person I knew,” died in June 2010.

“She wasn’t just my daughter. She was my best fried … we did everything together,” recalled Pamela Thornton, now charged with raising Geneva’s 6-year-old daughter, Makia.

The elder Thornton credits her faith and Hospice Atlanta for helping her emerge from such a tough situation.

“[Losing a child] is very bitter pill to swallow, said Thornton.

“Hospice, in a large way, prepared me for that. They held my hand, walked me through it and I couldn’t be more grateful for that.”

Information:

www.vnhs.org