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Eligibility Criteria | Preliminary Steps | Submit an Application | Recipients
2009-2010 Grant Recipients:
Schweitzer Fellows Brian Mikolasko and Melanie Robinson, Wake Forest School of Medicine
Baptist Medical Center, Winston-Salem
Mikolasko and Robinson conducted a psychosocial
support program for the families of burn survivors at the Burn Unit at
Baptist. Two Wake medical students will continue the project in the
upcoming year.
The Kate B. Reynolds Sustainability Grant was awarded to allow the
sustaining students to travel abroad to work in the burn unit after
their year of service. They have a relationship with Burn Care
International, which runs operations mainly in Cochabamba, Bolivia, but
also in Bangladesh and Ethiopia.
Schweitzer Fellows Nimi Janardhanam and Teesha Geyer, UNC School of Medicine
UNC Horizons
Janardhanam and Geyer conducted health education
classes three times a month at UNC Horizons, a comprehensive treatment
program for women who are struggling with substance abuse or addiction.
In addition, they visited the residential facility at UNC Horizons to
provide mini-presentations and general health screenings every
Saturday. Twenty women, mostly mothers, participated in their
workshops. They expanded the program to offer classes at the Orange
County Literacy Council, introducing over 150 medical terms to the
students, discussing disease prevention and risk factors with the
students, and providing blood pressure and blood glucose checks. A
student group dedicated to health literacy is currently being formed at
the University of North Carolina to recruit volunteers to continue
health literacy classes at the Orange County Literacy Council. UNC
Horizons staff will continue the weekly health education workshops
which a primary focus on smoking cessation.
The Kate B. Reynolds Sustainability Grant was awarded to fund supplies
to aid smoking cessation, food for nutrition and general health
education, and items to encourage physical activity.
Schweitzer Fellows Naomi Jean-Baptiste and Lina Elbadawi, Duke School of Medicine
Jean-Baptiste and Elbadawi designed a Women’s Health Outreach project
for the residents of the Durham Interfaith Hospitality Network (IHN)
which is a transitory shelter for women and children. With input and
guidance from the mothers, they were able to provide resources and
information to empower them to take responsibility for their health,
and the health of their children. They held weekly health education and
life skills workshops. Topics included how to read food labels, breast
health, diabetes, depression, heart health, stress management,
budgeting 101, and resume writing. To encourage active lifestyles,
monthly physical activities were held. During activities for the moms,
child care was provided where fun lesson plans were offered. Ten women
and 20 children participated in the program.
A Kate B. Reynolds Sustainability Grant was awarded to allow two Duke
School of Divinity students to continue the weekly health education
workshops and physical activities. The grant will provide funding for a
computer so that internet research can be incorporated into the
workshops. This will also the women to become knowledgeable researching
a health related topic and provide an opportunity for them to present
their findings to the group. This will serve as a wonderful platform
for empowerment and enhancing self esteem.
Schweitzer Fellows Kristin Johnson and Sarah Schietroma Koch, Wake School of Medicine
Johnson and Schietroma Koch taught cooking healthy on a budget classes
to underserved women. The classes featured hands on cooking
demonstrations as well as nutrition education. Over the summer, Kristin
and Sarah reached over 40 women at the Gateway YWCA in Winston-Salem
and the YWCA Central Carolinas Women in Transition program in
Charlotte. Class participants each received a cookbook which featured
all the recipes and nutrition information presented in the classes.
Sarah also taught the classes for 265 children in the YWCA Youth
Programs.
The YWCA Gateway and YWCA Central Carolinas classes will be sustained
by a local professional chef and a registered dietitian. The Gateway
classes will include 4 sessions of 4 classes over 12 months. The
Central Carolina classes will include 12 classes held over a 6 month
period.
A Kate B. Reynolds Sustainability Grant was awarded to fund the meals for the classes.
Schweitzer Fellow Rich McPherson, Wake Forest School of Law
McPherson worked with the Children’s Law Center of Central North
Carolina to meet the needs of children and families who are involved in
a high-conflict custody dispute or families where domestic violence has
occurred between parents. He served as a Guardian ad Litem (GAL) and
helped ten children and families identify local resources and service
providers. In addition, he created a community resource manual that
identified service providers, medical professionals, non-profit
organizations, and government organizations that helped children and
families that have experienced domestic violence. This manual will be
updated by members of the Children’s Law Center Clinic at Wake Forest
University School of Law. He also developed a training program for GALs
in high conflict custody cases.
A Kate B. Reynolds Sustainability Grant was awarded to fund the video
taping of the high conflict custody GAL training which will occur in
the fall, 2010 and a stipend for a psychology to assist with the
training. The video tape will be used for the GALs who could not attend
the entire training in person.
Schweitzer Fellows Sarah Mian and Reema Padia, ECU Brody School of Medicine
Mian and Padia created a weekly tutoring and mentoring program which
provided individualized English as a second language (ESL) instruction
and health education. Through their program, they helped diminish
language barriers, reduce the educational disparity, and ease the
assimilation of immigrants into our community. Childcare was provided
to help eliminate any barriers to attendance.
They recruited 60 ECU student volunteers who participated in the
program and received ESL training. Volunteers were paired with a
student and created a lesson plan based on their evaluation of the
student's goals and needs. Lessons plans could target a general goal
such as improving one's ability to read, write, or speak or could
address more specific goals, such as creating a job resume or learning
more vocabulary for their job. In addition to the literacy component,
Reema and Sarah presented monthly health informational sessions.
Throughout the year, their program served over fifty women throughout
the year.
Their program will be sustained by the ECU Spanish Club and is funded
through the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust Sustainability Grant.
Funding will be used for program materials such as ESL books and
dictionaries and general classroom supplies.
Schweitzer Fellow Tammy Pham, Wake Forest School of Medicine
Kimmel Farm Elementary School, Winston-Salem
Pham’s project augmented fifth grade science education with the goal to
provide the students with exposure to different fields of science and
relevant careers in those fields. Her project included teaching at a
two week summer science camp run by the Center for Excellence in
Research, Teaching, and Learning (CERTL), a weekly 3-one hour lesson
plan at Kimmel Farm Elementary, and a one day event, named Project
Spark, that featured speakers and interactive stations that took place
at SciWorks. The summer camp included around 20 fifth graders whereas
Kimmel Farm and the SciWorks event involved 70 fifth grade students.
The Kate B. Reynolds Sustainability Grant will provide $500 to support
the event in the fall semester of 2010 and another $500 to support the
event in the fall semester of 2011.
Schweitzer Fellows Kelli York and Rachel Dent, NCCU School of Education – Speech Pathology
York and Dent used small group reading to develop and enrich language
and literacy skills for 47 preschool and school-aged children.
Initially their project focused on the children at the Assistive
Technology for Infants and Preschoolers Project (ATIPP) who have
communication and related developmental delays. Later, they expanded
their work to include typically developing children at the Child
Development Lab and the 21st Century Afterschool Program. In addition
to small group thematic book reading, children were provided with an
activity-based group intervention that paired books with objects, toys,
and various activities to enhance oral language and early literacy
skills.
A Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust Sustainability Grant will be
awarded for NCCU Speech Pathology students to sustain the program at
the 21st Century Afterschool Program. Funding will be used for books
and classroom supplies for the program.
2008-2009 Grant Recipients: Moira Breslin and Michael Raisch, Duke School of Medicine
Project Compassion, Chapel Hill, NC
Moira and Michael created an art-based healing program to improve the quality of life of palliative care patients at Project Compassion. To accomplish this goal, they developed a curriculum of art and craft projects to be lead by student volunteers. The direction and pace of the projects was guided by patients’ interests and abilities. To this end, students were challenged to develop creative solutions to participants’ physical limitations. Healing Arts provided a practical approach towards achieving better emotional health during difficult of times, offering participants an additional mode of expression while helping them work towards dealing with the experience of grieving and ill-health. The team-based care-giving initiative provided volunteers an opportunity to establish meaningful relationships with members of the community who were suffering from illness and loss.
According to James Brooks, Director of Project Compassion, sustaining the Healing Arts project has had a powerful impact both in specific and wide-ranging ways:
1. Moira and Michael have continued to provide healing arts support for the Support Team Friend living with Parkinson's disease in Hillsborough as a complement to the other types of Support Team activities provided by other members.
2. A team of Duke first year med students recruited and trained by Moira and Michael provide healing arts support for an African American woman living with cancer and renal failure.
3. Moira and Michael's Healing Arts project connected Project Compassion with 15 Duke School of Medicine students who have now become involved in Support Teams. Eight of them incorporate Healing Arts activities as part of their team volunteering.
4. Thanks to the energy Moira and Michael brought to Healing Arts, Project Compassion has integrated the approach into all trainings with college and professional school students forming teams to consider as part of their activities.
5. Project Compassion has integrated the stories, ideas and examples generated by Healing Arts to all Support Teams as they form to help stimulate their awareness of the potential impact of using healing arts and to continue the model. For example, teams serving people with Alzheimer's have learned that doing an activity with someone is an effective way to interact. Teams offering support in facility settings have had great success using the arts and music to engage Support Team Friends.
6. As Project Compassion provides Support Team Development Conferences for groups from across the country, they use Healing Arts as an example of the types of teams that can be formed. As a result, Moira and Michael's work now inspires leaders developing this type of support in communities around the country.
As a result of the Healing Arts project, Project Compassion has built new relationships with medical students, expanded support for people living with illness and learned about a new way of providing support through community-based volunteers.
The grant monies went to Project Compassion and were used for training materials, art supplies, and staff time.
Kerry Colby, UNC School of Medicine
Open Door Clinic, Raleigh, NC
Kerry’s project was a health care prevention and screening program for the patients of the Open Door Clinic. The patients of the Open Door Clinic are uninsured and must meet certain income guidelines to be eligible for services at the clinic. Kerry’s project built on the efforts of previous Schweitzer Fellows, Brad Perez and Mirnali Patel, who implemented an STI screening program at the clinic. Her project integrated their work with the nursing intake program and expanded it to include updating the patients’ past medical history and discussing preventative health care issues such as immunizations and cancer screening.
The Open Door Clinic continued to provide comprehensive preventative initiatives and immunization efforts during intake. The Kate B. Reynolds Sustainability Grant funded the start-up costs for a new Zostavax immunization program which protects patients against herpes zoster (shingles). The program allowed 12 patients to receive the Zostavax immunization since July, 2009. Merck’s Patient Assistance Program will provide continuing supplies of the Zostavax vaccines. Each administered dose triggers a PAP-ordered replacement dose (for the named patient whose vaccine was just given, but delivered to the next patient requiring the arriving dose). This replacement program ensures a continuing supply of company-supplied vaccine, based on the initial supply which was purchased with the sustainability grant funds.
Chris Dibble and Courteney MacKuen, UNC School of Medicine
Lincoln Community Health Center, Durham, NC
Chris and Courteney initiated a free bimonthly HIV clinic providing Oraquick testing, counseling, and education at Lincoln Community Health Center. The populations targeted and served were uninsured high risk African American and Latino community and they were able to dispense education to every person counseled. In response to the success of the program, the health department began HIV testing at Lincoln on the opposite Tuesdays from Chris and Courteney’s project. With help from UNC School of Medicine, other medical students who are trained by SHAC to perform HIV testing and counseling will now be able to volunteer at Lincoln.
Two UNC School of Medicine students, Maria Thekkekandam and Michael Clarke-Pearson, sustained the project. They trained and led bilingual Student Health Action Coalition (SHAC)-HIV volunteers to test at the clinic, provided weekly, bilingual HIV testing and counseling, and identified a new UNC School of Medicine student to continue the project through the upcoming year.
Allowing properly trained SHAC-HIV volunteers to work at LCHC opened up service opportunities for students while simultaneously allowing Maria and Michel to expand the clinic to a weekly basis. On any given week, they led either one or two medical students at the clinic, which decreased wait times for patients and allowed more tests to be conducted. Thanks to new volunteer base, they were able to test 160 people for HIV, nearly twice the number tested in the 2008-2009 clinic. The limiting factor in the number of people able to be tested was often the clinic space available, which was at times shared with other specialty clinics.
Of the clients tested, over half were Spanish speakers and required bilingual counselors. The students were able to provide one-on-one testing and counseling in Spanish to clients who needed it. Spanish-speaking volunteers are increasingly available at UNC and the ability to lead them at LCHC allowed much more positive education and counseling about HIV at this clinic.
The grant money was used primarily to supply the clinic with proper supplies (counseling forms, a secure box for patient information, clipboards, pens, condoms & information packets, etc) and aid in transportation costs for volunteers to and from the clinic each Tuesday.
Amanda Hardy, UNCC School of Psychology
Jackson Park Ministries, Charlotte, NC
Amanda’s project focused on exercise promotion for a group of children whose average age was 10 years old. These children were either living in a transitional housing facility called Jackson Park Ministries or resided in the surrounding impoverished neighborhood. Amanda held a dance program for the girls who participated in a summer camp at the site. During the academic year, Amanda held weekly physical activities sessions with the children in the after school program focusing on general sports and improving coordination, muscle tone and self-esteem.
Jackson Park Ministries sustained the program in two ways. One, funding provided ballet shoes for15 girls to participate in a weekly Praise Dance Ministry program. Two, Jackson Park Ministries built a soccer field where area youth will now be able to participate in twice weekly soccer play and Saturday morning soccer training camps. The funding went toward two soccer nets and striping equipment.
Amy Marietta, UNC School of Medicine
El Futuro, Carrboro, NC
Amy designed and implemented a project to provide yoga-based stress reduction and relaxation for women who are patients at El Futuro, a Latino mental health agency in Carrboro. Many of El Futuro’s clients are recent immigrants and suffer from anxiety and depression. These weekly classes were conducted in Spanish, and included energizing body stretches, calming breathing techniques, and a final guided meditation.
The Sustainability Grant was awarded to allow a community member, Griselda Rivera, to receive formal training to be a yoga class instructor at El Futuro. Ms. Rivera was a participant in Amy’s classes and wanted to give back to the community. She leads weekly classes for community members and patients who are referred to the program by El Futuro’s therapists. El Futuro used the monies for a 9-month yoga training course for Ms. Rivera and yoga-related materials. One other positive outcome: one of the therapists was inspired to pursue her yoga instructor training which shows how much they value the program.
Genevieve Ricart, Duke School of Medicine
Urban Ministries of Durham, Durham, NC
Genevieve addressed the nutritional health of the Durham homeless population at the Urban Ministries of Durham. She worked with the chef at the shelter to encourage preparation of healthier, balanced meals to make the most out of donated food. Each week, Genevieve spoke with the targeted population both individually and in small groups to encourage healthy behaviors and discuss ways in which small modifications in diet can lead to great strides in health. She worked with the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle of Raleigh to offer nutrition and cooking classes where participants learned to make healthy choices while on a limited budget.
The grant provided funding for the Durham County Center NC Cooperative extension to offer healthy eating and nutrition training to shelter residents for two 14-week sessions. Shelter residents participated in hands-on cooking demonstrations and received copies of curriculum that provided them with guides to put what they have learned into practice.
The Director, Peter Donolon, was so enthusiastic with the results of Genevieve’s classes, that they created a volunteer cook’s position in their kitchen providing hands-on training for homeless people that are transitioning back into the community. The position allows the person to work alongside their chef to gain marketable skills that can easily transferred to basic restaurant work. To date, they have had three residents move through the process thus far. The gentleman currently working with them is in their Alcohol and Drug Recovery program, and is very enthusiastic about this opportunity.
Anita Unnithan and Brandy Edwards, ECU School of Medicine
Operation Sunshine, Greenville, NC
Anita and Brandy created S.T.A.R.T. (Stop, Think, & Act Responsibly Today) First Aid to teach basic first aid skills to children ages 5 – 13 at Operation Sunshine and the Summer Significance Academy. Lessons focused on emergency action steps, the Heimlich Maneuver, rescue breathing, treatment of wounds and burns, proper hand washing technique, personal safety when dealing with emergencies, prevention/treatment of heat exhaustion, and wilderness splinting. Through educational games, role playing, use of manikins, and tangible first aid tools, they provided both entertaining and highly instructive practice in first aid.
Operation Sunshine held a session of first aid lessons in April, 2010 for their after-school program of 21 girls. They will also offer three different sessions in June for their girls ages 5-7, 8 & 9, and 10-13 in their summer program. They used the grant monies to purchase 5 adult/child and 2 infant manikins as well as other support materials.
Laura Wolfe, ECU School of Medicine
Little Willie Center, Greenville, NC
Laura created an after school program for children to learn how to plant and grow a vegetable garden at the Little Willie Center (LWC) in Greenville with the help of the NC Cooperative Extension. Vegetables harvested were served for the children’s lunch or sent home with the families. In addition, the children and their parents attended cooking classes to learn about nutrition and healthy meals. Laura also encouraged physical activity using the President’s Fitness Challenge. Forty children and their parents participated in her program.
This year, thirty-two children participated in the program. A parent volunteer led the garden project with the children with the help of the Cooperative Extension Agent. They have partnered with ECU’s Food Literacy Program and ECU’s Campus Kitchen for nutrition education and cooking demonstrations. Engineering students agreed to design and install an irrigation system for the garden. The grant monies went toward the water bill, gardening tools, food for their daily meal program, prizes for the fitness challenge, and playground equipment.
Ashley Alexander and Ying Zhang, ECU Brody School of Medicine
Hope Lodge, Greenville, NC
Ashley and Ying’s project promoted the wellness of residents at the McConnell-Raab Hope Lodge, a residential facility for patients undergoing cancer treatments. By establishing therapeutic programming activities, they enhanced the quality of life, emotional well-being, and outlook on personal health of program participants. Understanding that total mind and body health should be approached holistically, they provided different therapeutic avenues for promoting patient wellness.
The ECU Student Occupational Therapy Association (SOTA) submitted a letter of intent to sustain the project by providing two to three student volunteers to conduct weekly therapeutic programming activities at the Hope Lodge. The SOTA did provide weekly activities during the fall of 2009. Unfortunately, the Hope Lodge Director suffered a stroke which left him paralyzed. Furthermore, Ms. Colcord underwent surgery which also derailed the project. Ashley and Ying are currently looking at other organizations with whom they can partner.
The grant monies were unspent and remain in a fund held by the Hope Lodge for use for future therapeutic activities.
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