The organization trying to build a hospice house in Bedford announced Tuesday that it has met a challenge to raise $30,000 in one month in order to win a $100,000 grant from an anonymous donor.

Bedford Hospice House not only met its goal but nearly doubled it, raising more than $58,000 since the first week in September, said Michael Cross, chairman of the organization's publicity committee.

In announcing the achievement, Cross said he is now at liberty to announce the donor that spurred Bedford Hospice House with the $100,000 "challenge grant" -- Roanoke's Maupin-Sizemore Foundation.

The total of $158,000 marks the beginning of an endowment fund the organization is trying to build to pay for the hospice house's operating budget.

The fundraising campaign follows a successful capital campaign in which the organization raised $1.6 million to build and equip a four-bed facility where the terminally ill can receive constant medical attention and live out their final days in a homelike setting.

To raise the $30,000 to qualify for the $100,000 grant, Cross said the organization solicited donations from previous donors and received money from as far away as Florida and New York.

The organization is now working to secure a site to build the hospice house and anticipates a groundbreaking later this year, Cross said. If so, the hospice house could open by late fall 2010.

Patients living within a 50-mile radius of the house, a range that includes much of the Roanoke Valley, would be eligible for its services with a referral from a participating area hospice service.