Allison, White win Hands on Nashville volunteer awards
Edd Allison
Jim White
Allison was named 2010 recipient of the Community Impact Volunteer Award Presented by Mars Petcare for his work with FiftyForward Friends Learning in Pairs, a tutoring program for school children.
He donated more than 1,100 hours to the program during the past five years.
Allison is a fixture at Vanderbilt where he has volunteered with Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt and the Infusion Clinic at Vanderbilt. He also spends time helping out at the Nashville Zoo and the Nashville Humane Association.
Vanderbilt Heart Red Coat Ambassador, Jim White, is the 2010 recipient of the Volunteer Innovator Award presented by CMT One Country.
The Volunteer Innovator Award recognizes individuals or groups who have responded creatively to an unmet community need by designing a volunteer program, practice or response, or by adding innovation to an existing program or agency.
White was the first Vanderbilt Heart Red Coat Ambassador, greeting patients and assisting them to their destinations throughout the campus.
He helped create a new volunteer position, the “Heart Institute Inpatient Visitor,” for volunteers who can relate to patients and lean on personal experience to help them through their treatment.
The efforts have been so successful that Vanderbilt has created similar volunteer programs in other areas of the hospital.
“Our volunteers provide an invaluable service to patients and their families, guiding them to appointments, helping them navigate sometimes confusing hallways, and working to make them more comfortable during their time at Vanderbilt,” said Andy Peterson, manager of Volunteer Services.
“The Vanderbilt Strobel Award winners and nominees are part of a larger group of nearly 750 Vanderbilt volunteers who generously donate their time to help our visitors each and every day.”