Giving Back Takes Center Stage

Good morning!

Yesterday we celebrated the ongoing support Children’s of Mississippi receives from the Sanderson Farms Championship golf tournament.  Tournament leaders and Century Club Charities presented Friends of Children’s Hospital with a check for $1.3 million, another record total from the weeklong event held each year at the Country Club of Jackson.

Among those present for the announcement were UMMC employees who volunteered to work at the tournament in one capacity or another.  As the tournament organizers are the first to attest, they couldn’t pull off this large of an event – which has grown beyond what anybody thought possible – without the hundreds of volunteers who do everything from registering spectators to measuring shot distances.

The critical role of volunteers put me in mind of how blessed we are as an organization to have so many people who give their time and talents to enrich the lives of others at UMMC.  Friends of Children’s Hospital immediately comes to mind, of course, because they have been at it for nearly 30 years.  There are so many other examples that it’s impossible to name them all. 

To start, we have a formal volunteer program coordinated by our Office of Patient Experience.  In many cases, these volunteers augment our workforce to help escort patients, greet visitors or do whatever needs doing – always with a smile and a caring attitude.  In other cases, volunteers are an inexhaustible supply of compassion to our patients and families.  I think of the “Rockin’ Mamas” of the Junior League of Jackson, who for many years have gently rocked premature infants in our NICU when their parents weren’t able to.

These traits are perfectly exemplified in our 2019 Volunteers of the Year, Tina Begley and Meseret Lendi. 

Our students seem to be hard-wired with a volunteer spirit.  Tammy Dempsey in our Office of Community Engagement and Service Learning has channeled this energy and documented nearly 20,000 hours of volunteer service hours students participated in during the last academic year.

I’m always impressed when I see photos of our faculty and staff doing medical mission work in villages in foreign lands where the need is great.  They work for days at a time to change the lives of those they serve.  Closer to home, much the same could be said for those who work in the Jackson Free Clinic, our student-led facility in inner-city Jackson that engages a multidisciplinary cast of student and adult volunteers.

There are many individual examples of volunteers who are making a difference for us in ways large and small.  A few that come occur to me:

• Missy McMullan, the wife of cardiology division chief Mike McMullan, prepares a home-cooked meal most Wednesday nights for dozens of students. (As a mother who raised and fed four kids, I can’t tell you how much this amazes me!)
  
  
• Shana Cook, the wife of health system CEO Kevin Cook and head of the UMMC Alliance, is a prime mover in many Alliance activities, including the annual “Breakfast with Santa” event held at the School of Medicine.
  
  
• Michael Taylor, the husband of Mary Taylor, chair of pediatrics, plays the part of Santa to Mary’s Mrs. Claus as they entertain patients in the Children’s Hospital each Christmas. Indeed, the whole Taylor family gets in on the act.
  
  
• Dental student Trent Wilkerson, an accomplished musician, has enriched many Medical Center events with the beautiful music he plays on the violin and piano.
  
  
• Theresa Anderson, the wife of surgery chair Chris Anderson, is a leader of the Transplant Guild that benefits organ transplant patients and has been involved with the Mississippi Organ Recovery Agency in hosting activities on campus and in the community to promote organ donation.

As the leader of UMMC, I’m frequently required to think in terms of money – what we are asked to do and how we’re going to pay for it.  Believe me, it’s not my favorite thing.   On the other hand, I will never lose sight of the humanity of our work – the desire of the human spirit to do good for others that is its own reward.  Indeed, the greatest reward.  I couldn’t say it any better than Joe Sanderson did at yesterday’s event.

“Today is like Christmas.  Today we have the opportunity to give back.”

Thanks to all of our volunteers who keep giving back, every day, on our journey to A Healthier Mississippi.