• Jim White, a volunteer with the Heart Institute, was the winner in the
Volunteer Innovators category.
• Edd Allison was the winner of the Community Impact award. He was nominated by
Fifty Forward for his work in the community as a volunteer with Friends
Learning in Pairs (FLIP) and RSVP program, as an ambassador at the Monroe
Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, The Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Clinic and Infusion
Clinic at Vanderbilt Health One Hundred Oaks. Allison is a busy man; he also
volunteers regularly at the Nashville Zoo and the Nashville Humane Association.
• Kristi Skeeters was nominated by The Junior League of Nashville for her work in
creating the Kohl’s Safety Store in Children’s Hospital.
• Dave Goldman – TVC Ambassador - Nominated for the Direct Service category
for his work as a volunteer as a Guest Ambassador in The Vanderbilt Clinics and
in Medical Center East, where the Vanderbilt Heart and Vascular Institute is
located.
• Mindy Whitley – Therapy ARC and Pet Therapy Coordinator for Vanderbilt – Nominated for the Direct Service category. She is the Delta Society Pet Therapy
Team volunteer liaison to VUMC, including Vanderbilt Health One Hundred Oaks,
and she orchestrates the critical screening, training, shadowing and placement
of each pet therapy team.
• Jan Overton and Kathy Rolfe were nominated in the Direct Service category as a
team by Friends of Children’s Hospital. Both of these women have played an invaluable role with The Friends
Shop located in Children’s Hospital. They helped establish the store as one where revenue comes back to the patients,
have helped pull in volunteers to help the store with functions throughout the
community to promote the shop and the hospital, and both of these women have
been on the Friends of Children’s Hospital board of directors with strategic mindsets on how to make the
organization be the best it can be for the hospital community.
• Patsy A. Bradley was nominated in the Community Impact category, and was noted
for her work with the Music City Invitational Tournament. The tournament raises
funds for the Center for Child Development at Children’s Hospital
• Pet Therapy Teams in Peds Rehab – Nominated for the Group category.
Mindy Whitley, Max and Tom Upright, Gilda and Sarah Ritzhaupt, Jedi and Carol
Monger, and Cole and Mary Hamilton are an innovative team of volunteers who
make a difference in the lives of patients, their families and staff at
Vanderbilt Health One Hundred Oaks Pediatric Rehabilitation Clinic and in our
wait areas.
• Tim Huff – Playroom Volunteer – Nominated for Direct Service category.
Each week on Monday evenings Tim Huff volunteers in the Child Life pediatric
playrooms at Children’s Hospital. As a playroom volunteer, Tim spends time with patients and families playing in
the playroom and also visiting patients in their individual hospital rooms.
• Matthew Li - Family Resource Center and cancer survivor – Nominated for the Youth category. Haoyu,16, whose English name is Matthew, was
diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) at age 7, and now that he is
healthy volunteers in the Junior League Family Resource Center at Children’s Hospital.
• Nashville Zoo - Nominated in the Group category. Khalil, a caracal, and other
exotic animals like Brooke, the two-toed sloth and Tootsie, the New Guinea
singing dog, travel from the Nashville Zoo each month to visit patients at
Children’s Hospital. Robin Harkins, outreach program manager for the zoo, and a volunteer docent put
on a free 30-minute educational program about the zoo animals the third
Wednesday of each month.
“These individuals are examples of what is great about our volunteers at
Vanderbilt University Medical Center,” said Andy Peterson, manager, Volunteer Services, for Vanderbilt University
Hospital.
