In July 2023, the Eastern North Carolina Nurses Honor Guard had the opportunity to participate in a living tribute for a fellow nurse, Janet Broady Farmer. The group of active and retired LPNs, RNs, FNPs and DNPs typically honors nurses throughout eastern North Carolina by attending their funerals or memorial services, but living tributes are a relatively new service that honors a nurse with a terminal illness or dementia. It allows the nurse to be present at his or her service, and it gives family members the opportunity to share and hear stories about their loved one.
“It is heart-touching for the family,” said Deborah Herring, a retired ECU Health nurse and honor guard member.
The national Nurses Honor Guard was initiated by the Kansas State Nurses Association in 2003. The Eastern North Carolina Nurse’s Honor Guard was established in 2017 by Tabatha Hall, assistant manager of nursing in labor resource management and its current president.
It was the first honor guard established in North Carolina, but many chapters followed. There are now nine regional chapters and one state chapter, and the Eastern North Carolina chapter serves 24 counties in the state.
During the honor guard funeral services, four or five nurses stand guard wearing their traditional white uniforms with caps and navy blue capes. They perform a ceremony customized for the honoree, but which follows a typical format. First, the Nightingale Tribute is performed. At this time, the Nightingale lamp is lit. Then, the Florence Nightingale pledge is recited; this is the same pledge every nurse recites at his or her graduation.
“It means a lot to nurses because they remember when they recited that pledge,” said Herring.
A poem is then read in which the nurse’s name is used, followed by the nurse’s prayer. The ceremony ends with the nurse’s final call to duty, and the Nightingale lamp is extinguished. This service is offered to the family at no cost.
While she’s participated in several funeral services, Herring said last summer’s living tribute was a first.
“The family wanted a little party with refreshments for the service and a table decorated with awards Ms. Janet had won,” she said. “We did our service, and then the family shared their memories of her and invited her former nurse manager to speak about how dedicated of a nurse she had been.”
Herring said the value of this type of service is that the guard can connect more with the family, and the event is a celebration of that person’s life.
It was all the more meaningful, Herring said, because she knew the nurse being honored.
“It just happened that I used to work with Ms. Janet,” she explained. “And this was back a long time ago. I was an African American woman working as a nurse at the Medical Center and I felt like I had to prove myself.” Herring said Janet pulled her aside one day and said something she never forgot: “She said I was smart and didn’t have to prove that to anyone,” Herring recalled. “She inspired me so much, and during the tribute ceremony I told the family that she was the one who inspired me to become a leader. I later became an assistant head nurse at the Medical Center, I worked as the director of nursing at the Pitt County Health Department and I was on the North Carolina Board of Nursing.”
After the ceremony, the honor guard received a thank you letter from Janet’s daughter. In it, she said, “All of our family and friends were so touched by the heartfelt words and sentiment. Having my mother’s previous coworkers there to speak of her passion and worth ethic was so special. Forty years ago, her memory and personality were so vibrant and full of laughter . . . thank you for brining those memories of her back to the forefront.”
Herring said many people don’t realize the honor guard exists or what services they offer.
“We’re trying to make sure people are aware,” she said. “That’s a big challenge.”
The guard members attend nursing conferences and funeral home conventions, they make visits to regional skilled nursing and assisted living facilities and they are working to get their information published in the North Carolina Board of Nursing newsletters. On May 6, the guard will host a booth at the Nurse and Well-Being Fair from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in the Medical Center’s cafeteria, where more people can learn about the guard and its services. It’s important to honor nurses in this way, Herring said, the same as one in the military, police or fire department might be honored.
“It upholds the profession to know that the service rendered by a nurse is valuable,” she said. “It’s your health being protected by the nurse, and you want to honor them for that.”
With construction underway on the future site of a state-of-the-art, 144-bed behavioral health hospital in Greenville, ECU Health’s Behavioral Health team visited the site for a mental health safety discussion with Thomas Construction.
ECU Health’s service line administrator for Behavioral Health Glenn Simpson visited the construction site during National Safety Week in the construction industry. This year, the focus is on mental health.
Simpson said one in five adults will experience a mental illness, and the construction industry has one of the highest rates of suicide in the nation, where 53 of every 100,000 workers in the United States die by suicide. That rate is four times greater than the national rate.
He said it’s as important to checking in on your own mental health as it is to check in on those around you.
“The construction industry especially has an extremely high rate of suicide. We know that it’s tough work that they’re doing,” Simpson said. “We’re so grateful for Thomas Construction, not only for the work they’re doing here at the site but for inviting us out for this discussion today. The message is important for everyone, but especially for this group here. It’s OK to reach out and ask for help.”
During the event, breakfast, t-shirts and mental health resources were distributed to the Thomas Construction team.
Chris Thorn, a health care team leader for Thomas Construction, helped set up the event. He said between National Safety Week, Mental Health Month and the team building a behavioral health hospital, the opportunity to hear from a professional and share resources worked perfectly.
“It can be a sensitive topic, especially in the construction industry, but ignoring mental health is not an option,” Thorn said. “These conversations are important for us to keep things moving in a more positive direction for our industry and letting our people know they have resources available to them.”
Simpson agreed and said it’s important to normalize conversations around mental health to reduce stigma.
“There’s still so much stigma attached to mental illness and substance use disorders,” Simpson said. “The more we can educate and make people feel OK about talking about those things, the greater impact we’ll have on turning some things around.”
During the event, Simpson promoted the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline as well, which offers 24/7 access to trained crisis counselors who can help people experiencing mental health-related distress.
The lifeline is available nationwide and connects callers with a trained professional in the state from which they are calling. North Carolina residents contacting the 988 services are connected to a team in Greenville. The lifeline offers free and confidential support and can also help callers connect with nearby services.
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ECU Health Behavioral Health Services
ECU Health, Acadia Healthcare host groundbreaking ceremony for new behavioral health hospital
Asthma is a chronic lung disease that causes inflammation and swelling of the airways, and it affects an estimated five million children in the United States. The annual economic cost of asthma is more than $81.9 billion, and in children ages 5-17, asthma is the number one cause of school absenteeism and is among the top reasons for pediatric emergency department (ED) visits and hospital admissions.
World Asthma Day, which is May 7, seeks to raise awareness about asthma and improve the lives of all people with asthma. The ECU Health Regional Pediatric Asthma Program has similar goals, including to reduce ED and inpatient admissions for children with asthma, decrease school absenteeism and to increase the quality of life for asthmatic children in eastern North Carolina. It does this by offering asthma testing, asthma education, tools to manage asthma, access to community resources and medication assistance. Their work with eastern North Carolina public schools has been a particularly effective way to reach children in rural North Carolina communities.
The ECU Health Regional Pediatric Asthma Program, first begun in 1995, initially served Pitt and Greene counties. The pilot program was a partnership between the ECU Health Maynard Children’s Hospital, Community Health programs and a local elementary school. In 1996, the hospital was awarded a three-year grant from the Duke Endowment to further support the development of a comprehensive pediatric asthma program model that focused on children in grades K–5. As a result, they saw a 40% decrease in ED visits by school-aged children, a 50% decrease in student absences and a 50% decrease in inpatient cost of care for school-aged asthmatic children.
The program has since expanded to serve 29 counties in eastern North Carolina, and the number of public schools served has increased to 16.
“Our legal team and the school boards establish contracts with the elementary schools that renew on a rolling basis, and these allow us to do asthma testing, communicate with parents, liaise with the children’s PCPs, help the kids access medication and ensure they are compliant,” said Bailey Edwards, respiratory care manager of the Pediatric Asthma Program. A respiratory therapist who has worked at ECU Health for nine years, Edwards joined the team after working bedside in the NICU and PICU. “I saw so many kids with asthma come through our hospital with severe symptoms.”
In addition to Edwards, the team is comprised of a medical director, a social worker, nurses and three additional RTs. Edwards and the team have worked hard to grow and improve the Pediatric Asthma Program’s scope. Once a child is referred by the school nurse, an asthma care manager contacts the parents for the consent to treat.
“I call the parents and introduce myself, tell them about the program and learn more about their child,” Edwards said. Then, Edwards goes to that child’s school and performs a fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) test with the child, which determines how much lung inflammation is present and how well inhaled steroids suppress that inflammation.
“Some of these kids have outrageously high FeNOs but didn’t know it – they didn’t realize they couldn’t breathe,” Edwards said. “I call their doctor after my assessment and let them know my findings and recommendations. Then we figure out how to get the child what they need.”
Medications are a key part of the child’s treatment, but often their families cannot afford them.
“We provide medications for free or at low cost through a Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals grant. These medications can keep kids out of the hospital,” Edwards said.
The asthma team also provides education to the children and their parents about how to use the medications properly and potential causes of asthma exacerbations, such as tobacco smoke, dust, weather change or exercise. Once a treatment plan has been established, the asthma team follows up regularly for several months to ensure the child is compliant and the plan is effective.
“A month after initial treatment, I often hear parents say, ‘My kid is my kid again,’ and the child is laughing and playing because they can breathe,” Edwards said.
The program’s reach into public schools continues to grow; nine more schools have pending contracts.
“Our outreach to schools is based on what we see in the emergency departments and hospitals,” Edwards said. “Once we identify these problem areas, we connect with primary care physicians and school nurses to establish relationships.”
Many of those connections are made through lunch and learns the team hosts at regional schools.
“We bring treats and give an hour presentation about our services, update the school nurses on asthma guidelines and tell them how they can refer to us,” she said. Doing this has allowed the program to get many more referrals. “What started as a trickle has now turned into a waterfall.”
Going through the schools, said Sue Anne Pilgreen, manager for the Pediatric Asthma and Eastern Carolina Injury Prevention Programs (ECIPP), is the best way to connect with children in rural areas.
“It is impossible for us to physically be in every county, but our regional partnerships with school nurses and primary care providers gives us a direct pipeline to these children, and they know we are only a phone call or school visit away,” Pilgreen said. “We take a holistic approach in caring for our patients and their families, and sometimes that means helping them find better housing, reliable transportation or mental health resources. Looking at a family’s social determinants of health and helping to fill some of those gaps is a critical piece of caring for children in eastern North Carolina.”
This program aims to overcome the disparity in health care options for many of the children they treat.
“You see families with no food, no electricity and no ability to afford medicine,” Edwards said. “The parents don’t want to take their kids out of school to see the doctor because that child has already missed so much school because of their asthma, and they can’t afford to take the time off work themselves. This program strives to eliminate those barriers.”
While the public school outreach is a major part of the program, it’s not the only way they are treating asthmatic children in rural North Carolina.
“We work with Dr. William Wooten, our medical director, in having monthly pulmonary clinics that provide specialty level care in places that don’t have those resources,” Edwards said. “It started in Jacksonville and moved to Richlands. Now we have three clinics — Richlands Pulmonary Clinic, ECU Tarboro and ECU Edenton — and more locations requesting clinics of their own.”
Like the school outreach, these clinics reduce the burden for families who cannot travel farther away.
“We’re cutting into that lack of transportation or gas money,” Edwards said. “And in places that don’t have clinics, we are gaining more school contracts.”
Looking forward, Edwards said the next goal is to increase their scope of research and apply for more grant money.
“We applied for a Vision Grant, which we should hear about this summer, and we are exploring research options, especially ones that demonstrate the program’s efficacy,” Edwards said.
These efforts will support the program’s continued growth and help them meet new opportunities to better serve eastern North Carolina.
That’s important, Edwards said, because since 2021, they’ve seen a 378% increase in the number of referrals and a 312% increase in the number of cases managed. This program, she emphasized, is unique in that it helps children and their families understand asthma so they can control it and have a high quality of life.
“There’s no program in North Carolina like us, and a lot of people reach out to us about what we’re doing,” Edwards said.
The program is always looking for more effective and efficient ways to reach families, because children with asthma are often invisible to those not looking for specific symptoms.
“You see a kid at school who doesn’t speak above a whisper or doesn’t speak in complete sentences. They don’t run around and play. They look fine, but to someone who is trained, you can tell their asthma isn’t well controlled,” Edwards said. “Asthma can go dormant and then come back; it can silence you. But this program can set you up for the rest of your life.”
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ECU Health and the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University participated in Eastern AHEC’s Health Careers Expo on Monday, April 29. The event welcomed high school students from Wayne County Public Schools to explore diverse health care professions and educational pathways available in eastern North Carolina.
Eastern AHEC Pathways Program serves the health care community by building a group of future providers that are equipped for their career. As part of their student services, they offer health care education resources to middle and high school students in Greenville and throughout eastern North Carolina to improve the geographic distribution, retention and quality of health care providers throughout the region.
At this expo, participants from ECU Health, Maynard Children’s Hospital at ECU Health Medical Center, East Carolina University, Wake Tech, Methodist University, the University of North Carolina, Pitt Community College, Carolina Therapy Connection and Wayne Community College displayed tables and spoke with students about health care career paths, both clinical and non-clinical, and gave advise on how to achieve their career goals.
In addition to career insights, students received essential training on identifying overdoses and administering Narcan, a life-saving medication. Dave Schiller, technical operations manager of the clinical simulation program at Brody, hosted the training. ECU Health emergency medicine physicians reinforced the importance of Narcan administration training.
During the training, a standardized patient, trained to mimic real-life scenarios for educational purposes, portrayed a patient experiencing an overdose, complete with simulated pale skin to replicate oxygen deprivation. Students were tasked with assessing vital signs and the patient’s belongings to recognize the overdose scenario. Subsequently, the training staff guided them through the process of administering Narcan.
“Events like these are great opportunities to give students hands-on experience in a safe learning environment to expose them to patient interactions and prepare them for their futures,” said Schiller. “Students learned about exciting career opportunities within the health care field and even worked with a simulated patient without causing harm with health care professionals guiding them through a scenario.”
By immersing students in practical training sessions and exposing them to a spectrum of health care careers, events like these expose students to careers they have never thought of and help develop a future workforce in eastern North Carolina.
ECU Health and Conetoe Family Life Center hosted a Food is Medicine event at the Pinetops Community Center on May 1, to bring fresh produce and health screenings to the community. The initiative aims to bridge the gap in health care access and nutritional resources by providing essential services directly to the community.
Every Wednesday from 3 to 5 p.m. the Conetoe Family Life Center brings its bus of fresh produce for community members to receive free fresh produce. Paired with health screenings provided by the ECU Health team, this creates a reliable and accessible avenue for residents to prioritize their health needs.
Nurses from ECU Health provided vital health screenings to attendees. These screenings included measuring blood pressures, blood sugars and A1C levels, crucial metrics for assessing overall health. ECU Health team members engaged in meaningful conversations with community members, offering personalized insights and guidance on maintaining and improving their well-being.
“Our overall goal is to touch the lives of our community members and improve how they feel about their overall health and well-being,” said Madison Stevens, an administrative fellow at ECU Health. “Rural areas like eastern North Carolina often lack health care resources and access to healthy and fresh foods. With Food is Medicine, we want to address the root causes of health disparities and empower individuals to make informed choices about their health.”
The program is funded by a grant from The Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation, and ECU Health completes surveys with attendees to collect data from these events to measure how community members feel about their overall health from the start to the end of the program, if they are spending less money at the grocery store, making recipes they receive from the Food is Medicine event and feel in control of their health.
“We also recognize the importance of access to health care services beyond events like these,” said Rob Zerniak, an administrative fellow at ECU Health. “We are actively connecting attendees with resources to become insured and connecting them with primary care providers, ensuring that the benefits of the Food is Medicine initiative extend far beyond the event itself.”
Since November 5, 2023, this partnership has made an impact on the community, particularly through ECU Health’s primary clinic in Pinetops, which plays a crucial role in understanding the needs of the patients we serve during visits by conducting social determinants of health screenings and guiding them to available resources. The event on Wednesday saw over 50 participants bring home fresh produce like bell peppers, lettuce, carrots, strawberries and onions. For more information about future events, please contact [email protected].
ECU Health EastCare participated in the impactful Prom Promise initiative, engaging students at both Perquimans County High School and Richlands High School on April 23 and 24, respectively. The objective was clear: to dissuade teens from driving under the influence during prom season through vivid reenactments of motor vehicle accidents.
Before the re-enactment, students were presented with facts about the dangers of drinking and driving. According to Prom Promise’s founding organization The Prevention Network, one-third of all teen deaths occur in alcohol-related collisions between April and June, and nearly 41% of teens ages 16-19 are likely to drink or use drugs during or after prom.
Chuck Strickland, EastCare’s outreach coordinator at ECU Health, expressed the initiative’s goal of leaving a lasting impression on students, steering them away from driving under any form of impairment.
The events featured realistic depictions of crashed vehicles, complete with students portraying injuries resulting from the collisions. The students witnessed the arrival of first responders who initiated care and extricated individuals with the Jaws of Life, a tool used by emergency rescue personnel to assist in the extrication of victims involved in vehicle accidents. An EastCare helicopter landed on the scene as part of the demonstration, underscoring the importance of quick response required in such emergencies.
“I want to extend my heartfelt appreciation to our local first responders for their invaluable partnership and unwavering dedication in making our DWI reenactment crash demonstration a success,” said Steve Clarke, principal, Richlands High School. “Their professionalism, expertise and commitment to ensuring the safety and well-being of our students and community are truly commendable. We are grateful for their continued support and collaboration in our efforts to educate and empower our students to make responsible choices and prioritize safety at all times.”
Through collaborative efforts and a commitment to education, ECU Health and its partners aspire to instill responsible decision-making and prioritize safety among students – not only during prom season but throughout their lives.
ECU Health leaders, in association with Triangle Healthcare Executives’ Forum of North Carolina, recently hosted a C-Suite Round Table to discuss everything from workforce development to artificial intelligence in health care.
ECU Health Chief Operating Officer Brian Floyd, Chief Clinical Officer and Chief Quality Officer Dr. Niti Armistead, Chief Nursing Executive Trish Baise and Chief Strategy Officer Todd Hickey served on the panel for the discussion while ECU Health Beaufort Hospital President Dennis Campbell II moderated the event.
Floyd said the COVID-19 pandemic and the years that have followed created many financial challenges in health care, especially for rural hospitals and health systems like ECU Health, which already operated on thin margins.
“Most things cost less to operate in a more rural environment, except health care,” Floyd said. “By the sheer nature of us having to spread our resources so far around communities that are less densely populated, we are perfectly designed to cost more to operate than a health system of similar size in an urban environment.”
He said these circumstances made the ECU Health system come together to design improvements that help create efficiencies within the system to better serve team members, patients and families.
Talent and workforce development is a key piece to creating a more sustainable model of delivering health care in a rural community like eastern North Carolina. Baise said it’s been crucial to connect with team members and potential team members in different ways to recruit and develop high-quality nurses for the region.
“When we’re looking at cost savings, recruitment and internal programs to develop team members is a big part of that. We’re constantly evolving and looking at things differently,” Baise said. “We’re not a large metropolitan area, we don’t have significant population growth so we have to grow our own. That means academic partnerships, ensuring that we’re creating an environment that the students we’re working with will appreciate. On the back end, that also means making investments in our nurses.”
She said at the height of nurses leaving health care across the country, ECU Health experienced a 23% turnover rate of registered nurses. Thanks to the investment the system has made in nursing, the turnover rate is down to 12.6%. The investment from the system in nursing, Baise said, has gone beyond a financial investment but also includes capturing the voice of nurses, professional development and overall culture improvement.
Innovation has been a hallmark of the ECU Health story. Dr. Armistead noted that when the health system re-branded to ECU Health on Jan. 1, 2022, health care was in the midst of the Omicron variant surge from the pandemic. Dr. Armistead noted this was the most difficult month of the pandemic, one that took a toll on the health care workers tasked with treating large volumes of critically ill patients.
Through this, though, Dr. Armistead said the system has grown into an exciting, vibrant place with positivity that’s working to improve the health and well-being of eastern North Carolina.
“Aligned with our mission, we’re very community focused,” Dr. Armistead said. “That’s how we got through the pandemic, was with very strong community partnerships. Now, we’re shifting the focus of those partnerships to deal with our other challenge, which is the heavy burden of chronic disease in the region. We’re being very tactical and I’m so proud of what we’re able to do as ECU Health.”
Hickey said the work that he is most proud of is the health system’s outreach to the vulnerable populations in the 29-county region ECU Health serves.
In an area with a myriad of challenges in social determinants of health – highlighted by the fact that 21 of the 29 counties ECU Health serves are considered Tier 1 counties on the social vulnerabilities index – Hickey said partnerships make all the difference in making connections and helping community members access health care.
“Understanding that the biggest indicator of health outcomes is transportation, being able to get to an appointment, access to food, those things that we know have a much greater impact on someone’s health and health status is crucial,” Hickey said. “So we put a system in place in our community hospitals and we deliver on the promise of ensuring that we are meeting our patients where they are. I really think COVID helped drive that home in a different way, too.”
Hickey also said initiatives like the Community Health Needs Assessment are important avenues for patients to provide feedback to the health system.
The Round Table brought together leaders from around the state to hear from ECU Health and gain insight on how they are looking at shaping the future of rural health care in eastern North Carolina.
Recently, local middle school students had the opportunity to visit ECU Health Medical Center and learn about careers in the health care industry.
Grow Local, sponsored by Greenville-Pitt County Chamber of Commerce, started in 2018 and is designed to create and unveil career interests, grow the talent pipeline, and connect local businesses to future team members, according to the Chamber.
During the students’ trip to the Medical Center, they visited pharmacies and clinical labs across the hospital, took a tour of the Operations Center, and learned about the role of Organization and Leadership Development.
Nancy Turner, workforce development consultant at ECU Health, said connecting with local students is crucial to let them know of career opportunities available across the health system.
“These events are fantastic for a number of reasons,” Turner said. “For students that aren’t sure of what career path they might be interested in, it’s an opportunity to introduce a new idea and give them some options. For those interested in a career in health care, it’s a chance for us to make that connection for them early. We’re just grateful to have such great community partnerships that allow us to have these opportunities.”
In the Cancer Care Laboratory, students had a chance for a hands-on learning experience as they worked on putting together mock IV medication bags. Laboratory team members walked the students through the process and helped show them a bit of what they do on a daily basis.
Turner said it was exciting to see the students engaging with team members and learning how different team members help patients heal.
“These are things they’re not going to see every day,” Turner said. “It’s a really unique experience to talk to a lab technician, see them in their environment and get to try out part of their job. Having team members willing to take time out of their day and pour into our next generation of the workforce for a few minutes might not seem like much but it could create a passion and career path for a student.”
Another set of students headed to the Operations Center at ECU Health Medical Center, where they learned about the many career options supported throughout the health system, whether at the bedside or out in the community. From Nursing and Pharmacy to Information Technology, Food and Nutrition Services, and more, ECU Health supports community members from a variety of careers.
In the Operations Center, Jacob Parrish, vice president of Capacity and Throughput at ECU Health Medical Center, showed students how a team manages patient movement through a 974-bed hospital.
“As someone who is non-clinical, I think it’s great to show the students that there are careers that are super important to running a hospital that aren’t directly patient facing,” Parrish said. “I think it’s vital to help develop that next generation of folks who are going to serve eastern North Carolina, whether it’s as a care team member or as a support team member. I’m just glad to be a part of this event and if we helped one student realize that they may be interested in a career in health care today, then that’s a great thing.”
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While the East Carolina University (ECU) baseball team is rounding into form as postseason play nears, they’re also taking time out to make a special difference in their community.
After a visit to ECU Health Medical Center last November, as part of a career shadowing opportunity, senior first baseman Carter Cunningham felt compelled to do something to help patients and families.
“I’d been praying for ways to give back to the community,” Cunningham said. “As we’re doing a tour of the entire campus, we walked into the [Maynard] Children’s Hospital and it was like God had smacked me in the face. It was like, this is what I have to do. I didn’t know what it would look like yet, though.”
He said that week, he went back to the team and asked for a small donation from everyone to spread some holiday cheer to patients and families at the children’s hospital. The response was more than he expected.
“We got about $500 and we were able to drop off some presents to the children’s hospital right before break,” he said. “It was awesome. We had about 20 players come in and we hung out in the playroom and had a great time.”
Tara Tadlock, a child life specialist at Maynard Children’s Hospital, said patients and families would subsequently talk about the visit for the next month. The same held true for Cunningham and his teammates, who also went on talking about how special the visit felt.
He said over the Christmas break he took more time to think about what he could do to make an impact for patients and families like those he’d met a few weeks before. Then the idea to start a foundation, Homers That Help, came to him.
It started with a call for donations on social media, one sponsor for each of ECU’s 33 home baseball games in 2024. The sponsor makes an up-front donation to the fund and an additional donation for each home run hit during the game. While he expected to need some time and make some calls to fill every game, the fund was complete after about 15 hours.
“The community here, I can’t describe it,” Cunningham said. “I get goosebumps talking about it because they’re so generous and so supportive, not only of ECU athletics, but the whole community. It was a testament to all the people that are here and I’m thankful and blessed to have an opportunity to be here.”
Because of the outpouring of support, Cunningham opened a “Fund B” for those who were not able to directly sponsor a game but still wanted make a donation. Cunningham is making donations himself as well, contributing $25 to the fund for each of his own home runs. With nine home runs, Cunningham is tied for the team lead and backing up his own efforts.
Along with the funds, which Cunningham and Tadlock recently started to distribute to patients and families, Cunningham and his teammates are continuing to make bi-weekly visits to the Maynard Children’s Hospital. He said taking a step back to give time to others is important to him.
“As a Division I athlete, you get so caught up in the games and practices, the wins, the losses, but every other Monday it’s just eye-opening,” he said. “I’ll never forget one patient, the day before we went to play Campbell, he said, ‘Have fun at your game tomorrow.’ It was so refreshing and offered great perspective. It’s way bigger than baseball. These visits are the best part of my week every time I visit.”
Tadlock said the program has been a great benefit for everyone involved and she’s looking forward to its continued success.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time with scheduling our visitors and working in Child Life and these visits are a bright spot of our month, too. It’s great to see the patients and families so excited, seeing the guys so excited and knowing that they’re making a difference for our patients is huge,” Tadlock said. “Some of the kids that are here are going through really hard stuff and finding out hard news. If they’re able to leave that behind for a few minutes and hang out with the ECU baseball team, it’s really important to try to create those special moments. All we want to do in Child Life is provide some normal experiences for the children. Working with this team has been amazing.”
Though this is Cunningham’s last year at ECU, he said the plan is for Homers That Help to carry on. He’s looking to younger members of the team to pick up the torch and build upon the positive momentum the foundation has today.
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Greenville, N.C. – ECU Health is seeking feedback from community members throughout eastern North Carolina on its current Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA). The feedback from the CHNA allows the health system to understand what community members see as the most important health issues affecting their communities.
Every three years, ECU Health conducts this comprehensive assessment to provide the foundation for improving and promoting good health in eastern North Carolina region. By soliciting feedback directly from the community, ECU Health can better tailor efforts to promote wellness and address critical health challenges.
ECU Health encourages all community members age 15 and older to complete the CHNA survey and provide meaningful feedback on how ECU Health can continue to improve health and well-being in eastern North Carolina.
The survey takes approximately 10 minutes to complete and all responses are confidential. Your feedback helps ensure health care needs are met in the 29 counties ECU Health serves. The survey is open through June 7, 2024.
The CHNA process involves comprehensive data collection and analysis, including demographic, socioeconomic, and health-related statistics. However, the most valuable insights come directly from community members themselves. The completed CHNA analysis and results serve as the basis for prioritizing strategies to meet the community’s health needs in order to improve the health and well-being of eastern North Carolina.
The survey is in both English and Spanish and can be found at ECUHealth.org/CHNA.