A recently-funded project of the Cayuga County Human Services Coalition may have gotten an unintended boost from a high-profile end-of-life case.

The death of Terri Schiavo, a brain-damaged Florida woman, in March raised awareness about the importance of health care proxies and living wills.

The coalition hopes to further publicize the benefits of end-of-life planning through a $70,000 two-year program funded by the Community Health Foundation of Western and Central New York.

"It comes at a time when it gets the benefit of heightened community awareness," said project coordinator Monica Scott. "It's very empowering to be part of the process to make sure your wishes are respected."

The program has several phases, including collecting data from organizations including nursing homes and home health agencies to see how many people already have proxies; holding community forums to publicize the need for living wills and creating a standardized method to ensure a person's proxy forms follow them through the health care system in Cayuga County, Scott said.

The coalition was one of six organizations, including Allegany County Community Partnership on Aging, Genesee County Long Term Care Task Force, Long Term Care Committee of the Tompkins County Health Planning Council, Niagara Caregivers Network and Coalition for Heath Care Decision-Making, to receive funding totaling $435,000 this year.