HONOR AN EXEMPLARY TENDER!
We are making portraits of people who excel in the WORK of tending. We are asking HEALTHCARE WORKERS to recognize outstanding NURSE colleagues working in and around Charlottesville, VA, who go out of their way to look after others and rise above expectations in the work of tending their patients as well as their coworkers.
Exemplary tenders have a way of making people feel safe.
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Please include the name and email address of your favorite tender and we will be sure to recognize their exemplary work with a message of appreciation.
*We like to recognize our sponsors as well, so please ask for anonymity if that is what you prefer.
Interview with Brenda Dellar - Clinical Nurse Specialist/ Acute Renal Unit at UVA Health
RN x 30 years
While visiting her grandmother in a nursing home, Brenda met the nurse in attendance. The nurse allowed Brenda , then 10 years old, to shadow her for the day while she went about her tasks of tending to residents. “She really took me under her wing.” Brenda found that she thoroughly enjoyed the work , and this
experience led her to pursue a career in nursing.
2. What about your current job motivates you to stay?
“My team”. The consistent presence of a supportive team of coworkers motivates Brenda to stay in her current job.
3.What about your current job threatens to drive you out?
The pressure to “hang in there”, stay late, work overtime, even when it is at a disservice to your health.
4. What are you doing to tend to yourself?
"I try to make time to quiet my mind, be still and do nothing”, Brenda said, as well as eating a healthier diet with more protein and less sugar.
#portraitofatender #loveconnecttend
When she was a child, Richelle told her Great-great Aunt GG, “I want to be a teacher like you when I grow up.” GG was a pragmatist, and although she had graduated with a Master’s in Education from NYU - quite a feat for a black woman in the 1940s - her response was, “Oh no, no child… do something that will make you money.” Of course, some advice we heed and some we don’t. Richelle went on lining up her doll babies in her make-believe classroom, following her heart, listening to her head, exploring what her world had to offer, and all the while fine-tuning the natural gifts of tending that were hers from her beginning.
Richelle’s childhood was rich in opportunities for the work of tending. Being raised in a multigenerational household meant there was always someone to care for in her home. Richelle was called upon to help those around her much more than your average American child. She came by this work naturally, but these tender traits were further cultivated by her environment. Nature and nurture work within Richelle, creating a synergy that ultimately produced a mentor, a coach, a teacher, and finally, in a pinnacle of tending achievement, a Priestess. Her spiritual name, Iya Osunkemi Karade, means “Oshun cares for me” and “the people have returned to tradition”. Her religion, Ifa, comes from the Yoruba people of Nigeria and emphasizes ancestral reverence, respect for elders, and respect for the forces of nature - the ultimate project of tending.
Through her work at Renaissance School during the pandemic and in her role as a mother, Richelle sees how the disconnection and fear associated with Covid-19 have led to social-emotional delays in children and adolescents. Furthermore, her work as an academic mentor for athletes at the college level showed her that college students were affected as well. The need for coaching and mentoring has increased as her community finds its footing again.
Renaissance School fosters close relationships between faculty and students, allowing ample opportunity for mentorship and coaching in simple day-to-day interactions as well as structured time out of the classroom. Fortunately for Richelle, this work not only fills the cups of her students and community members, but it also fills hers. Her cup runneth over, so to speak, and also her light from within.
Richelle is pictured here with her husband, Todd Carter, favorite tender and tendee.
#LoveConnectTend
#PortraitofaTender
#RenaissanceSchool
#community
#Charlottesville
#Cville
#Ifa
#Nigeria
#Yoruba
Born and raised in Buckingham County, Va, Freddy Jackson has lived all over the country and explored many different walks of life, from music to athletics to academics. He has been connecting with people in a multitude of roles, as an artist, an athlete, a counselor, an educator and a mentor. He has big energy. You can feel it. Underneath that giant smile and dynamic exterior is a softness as well. You can hear it in his voice and understand it through his words. He has experienced some of the best and the worst things life has to offer. He is a survivor.
Through it all, Freddy came to realize “the simple truth that we are all connected. What I do affects you and what you do affects me. It helped me prioritize connection in my life. Everything we do at Love No Ego stems from that. I grabbed a hold of this truth and I saw it. The universe sends you messages every day that feed your love space, your natural intuition. I think we are all searching for a level of intimacy. We all want to have our love cup filled. We just need the time, the tools, and the stillness to realize that for ourselves.”
In 2016 Freddy founded Love No Ego, an organization dedicated to helping anyone from 10 to 24 years old develop a foundation within themselves that is not easily shaken by the outside egotistical world. This foundation is rooted in connection with nature and one another. They work to show their clients how to use the tools of the modern world for what they are and not allow the tools to use them.
The pandemic was an opportunity for growth for Love No Ego and blossom it did. Families were looking for something outdoors for their kids that allowed for connection and they needn’t look any further. Love No Ego was there for them. Their services are completely free, so funding is sometimes a challenge. Freddy doesn’t allow such things to slow him down. He keeps his focus, the funding ebbs and lows, and the community stays connected.
Go, Freddy, go!
Freddy is pictured here with a Love No Ego mentee.
For more information on Love No Ego, please check out their website!
#portraitofatender
#loveconnecttend
Christa shimmers with a quiet, understated strength that has been built on adversity, resilience, and love. She is a special education teacher, a cancer survivor (x2!!), a single mother of three, an immigrant, an adoptee, a trauma survivor, and a red sash in the venerable art of Kung Fu. She is a warrior.
When asked what drew her to the work of teaching, Christa reckoned back to her days recovering from breast cancer. In 2004, she was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer while 8 months pregnant with her third child. Now on the other side, she needed to work to support her family. She saw an opening in the paper for a teacher at a local juvenile detention facility. “That job was calling my name. I wanted to work with those types of kids, the ones that are thrown away by society. I immediately felt a connection. I see beautiful things in these kids. I can see through their throwing of chairs or tables. I find the beauty that they have inside and show it to them. I can teach them that they are worthwhile. It’s the little things, like the way they cared for their dog that day. When you only hear criticism most of your life, and then someone tells you that you are worth something, there’s a lot of beauty and grace and gratitude in it.”
Needless to say, she got the job. That led to her next job at The Little Keswick School, and then on to her master's in education and a position as a special education teacher at Buford Middle School. Christa has tended children and adolescents with special needs most of her adult life while raising three babies on her own and coping with chronic illness.
She recently took a medical leave of absence from Buford. She is battling colon cancer and her youngest daughter is awaiting a kidney transplant. When running errands in town last summer, she ran into one of her prior students from the juvenile detention facility. “Do you remember me?”, she asked Christa. Of course she did. The woman went on to thank Christa for helping her. She told her that she now has a job and a beautiful family. Christa smiles and says “She was happy, healthy, and eloquent. I thought about the reciprocity in it. I helped you and now your gratitude is helping me. You can’t help all the kids, but you can help some, and they are worth it.”
Christa is pictured here with her beloved rescue dog, Orso.
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