Vote for this year's Strobel Volunteer Awards finalists! 

JohnThomas Atema

Best Buddies

JohnThomas Atema began volunteering with the Best Buddies organization in the sixth grade. As a peer, lunch and a homework buddy, JohnThomas has been a consistent friend to peers with special needs because of his passion for inclusivity.

Riya Narayan

Founder of Treats & Tunes

At age 14, Narayan founded Treats and Tunes to provide engaging activities and entertainment for members of elderly communities. Through her organization, she has reached out to many assisted living centers, coordinated performances and logistics, and planned in-person and virtual events. 

Maddie McDaniel

Girl Scout Troop 6000 and One Generation Away

Maddie McDaniel is no stranger to spreading the love when it comes to volunteer efforts in the Nashville area. As a student, Maddie dedicates all her weekends and breaks to serving both Girl Scout Troop 6000 and One Generation Away. 

Kimberly Webb

CASA Nashville

Serving the Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) for the past 11 years, Kimberly Webb serves as both a peer coordinator and volunteer advocate for children in the foster system. At home, Kimberly is a foster mother and has opened her home to over 20 children. While children in the foster system experience many faces that come and go, Kimberly is a dependable and familiar face to over 17 children and teens at CASA.

Greg O'Loughlin

Oasis Center

Nine years ago, Greg O’Loughlin joined Oasis, a nonprofit that helps young people in Middle Tennessee transition into a successful and content adulthood. In 2014, Greg and manager Dan Furbish wanted to advance the Oasis Bike Workshop and launched the Oasis Mountain Bike Team, which coaches kids to practice and compete on bike courses all over the state. Since then, he has continued to help connect the mountain bike team and the bike workshop to STEM teachers across Nashville schools.  

Lina Londoño Tinsley

Conexión Américas
 
Global marketing manager and life coach at Conexión Américas, Lina Londoño Tinsley dedicates her time to encouraging and guiding Latino community members to take advantage of what feels like far-fetched dreams. With the most highly engaged and attended class, Lina continues to lend a helping hand in advancing the small businesses of her students as well as providing them with the business information they need to make their dream a reality.  

Carole Sergent

Nashville International Center for Empowerment, Tennessee Resettlement Aid, The Branch of Nashville, Individual refugee families

Carole Sergent was one of the few independent volunteers who saw a need and carved her own path to meet it. When the Afghan refugees began to arrive in Nashville, Carole immediately acted by accepting all donations needed for survival. Since then, she has recruited over 200 people who help to donate and deliver items to over 250 Afghan refugees who have arrived in the United States. 

Vera Coleman

FiftyForward

Vera Coleman is one of the first ambassadors for the All of Us Research Program, volunteering consistently since its founding in 2018. The program is a new initiative from the National Institutes of Health to advance precision medicine. Because of Vera’s service to FiftyForward, the All of Us Research Program has enrolled over 450,000 individuals so far, with over 80% of those representing historically underrepresented communities in biomedical research.

Edward Arnell

Preston Taylor Ministries

Edward Arnell has been a consistent and dependable face to many of the students at Preston Taylor Ministries. Serving the students of Mt. Nebo four days a week, Edward has become not only a mentor to many of the students, but also a friend, tutor and spiritual adviser. By providing educational help and spiritual wisdom to the students, he has become a role model and a friend they often look for when they come to PTM.  

Congregation of Alameda Christian Church

Society of St. Andrew

The congregation of Alameda Christian Church has volunteered with the Society of St. Andrew (SoSA) for five years, aiding the nonprofit in their efforts to provide healthy food, reduce food waste and forge community bonds by ensuring no one goes hungry.

Come to the Table

Founders of Come to the Table

Come to the Table Tennessee is a faith-based nonprofit community organization established in January 2019 by Jennifer Ray and Gloria Damron out of the desire to lessen the burden of hunger while offering physical, emotional and spiritual support. Each week, Jennifer and Gloria serve a hot meal to anyone in need and provide a community where they can relax, eat, talk and laugh.

Connect Us Outreach Ministry Volunteers

Connect Us Outreach Ministry

For years, Frank Brooks, Mary Yarbrough and Evang. Kathy Morrison have volunteered at Connect Us Outreach Ministry, a locally owned outreach center that provides hands-on work in the Nashville community. Preparing and distributing food boxes, clothing and household goods for those in need, distributing masks and sack lunches to homeless populations throughout the city, and providing necessary supplies to tornado victims, this trio has embodied the Ministry’s core mission each day. 

Susanne Shepherd Post

Founder of Shear Haven with YWCA Nashville & Middle Tennessee

Combining her career and her calling, Susanne Shepherd Post co-founded the Shear Haven initiative with YWCA Nashville & Middle Tennessee in 2017 to train cosmetologists to recognize their role in identifying and reporting domestic violence. To date, more than 40,000 cosmetologists have completed the Shear Haven training on the Barbicide website, giving them the tools they need to recognize and report domestic abuse. 

 Carole Purkey

WOW Transition House

Purkey was introduced to Women of Worth (WOW) through her church, Donelson Church of Christ, and has served as an active board member and volunteer since 2020. By advocating for the organzation to her church, Carole expanded the capabilities of WOW with a roughly $60,000 property renovation in 2021 that opened the doors to their second recovery house, increasing their capacity from five beds to 11 beds.

Sunny Fleming

Friends of Shelby Park & Bottoms

With 1,300 acres of space with varying biomes, the small, dedicated Friends of Shelby Park and Bottoms maintenance crew has their work cut out for them in improving and protecting the park. Thanks to Fleming’s knowledge of ArcGIS, a geographical information system, she was able to create and set up a survey that enables park maintenance needs to be easily flagged on a map, enhancing the ability to maintain the park. 

Veronica Zavaleta

Hands On Nashville, Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition

A local and national community organizer and activist, Veronica Zavaleta has availed herself to Nashville’s immigrant community and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients since 2010. Amid changing legislation and uncertainty, she has gone above and beyond the call of duty, helping to coordinate an event to benefit Nashville’s Hispanic community impacted by the flood, recruiting other volunteers, and organizing outreach to assist with everything from supplies to paperwork for immigration cases.

John Bull

Open Table Nashville

John Bull is a longtime volunteer for Open Table Nashville (OTN), an interfaith, grassroots nonprofit that seeks to disrupt cycles of poverty, journey with the marginalized and provide education about issues of homelessness. John acts as the eyes and ears for OTN among the unhoused community, providing necessary supplies, communicating shelter updates, monitoring flood activity and transporting those in need of medical attention. He is a one-of-a-kind volunteer who does the direct, daily work while also advocating for sustainable, systemic changes that our city needs.

Linda McFadyen-Ketchum

Moms Demand Action Tennessee

Linda McFadyen-Ketchum has given almost 50 years of volunteer service to the city of Nashville and the state of Tennessee. As a full-time volunteer activist for the national organization Moms Demand Action, she gives a voice and power to those who are impacted by gun violence through mobilizing statewide initiatives, championing legislative efforts, and most importantly, lifting up survivors.

Hispanic Outreach Task Force

Hands On Nashville

In the aftermath of the March 2021 flood, south Nashville was in particular need of disaster relief. While there were many volunteer organizations making recovery efforts at the time, it was quickly realized that a task force of community members who could understand and navigate the cultural nuances of the largely Latino community was needed. Without the Hispanic Outreach Task Force, many members of the Latino community in south Nashville would not have had a trusted avenue to reach out for help with disaster recovery.

Emergency Response Unit

Office of Emergency Management

During Nashville’s tremendous rainfall and historic flash flooding in March 2021, crews were quickly needed to help rescue residents who had been trapped in dangerous situations. That’s when the Emergency Support Unit (ESU), a team of roughly 30 community members ranging from CEOs to teachers, mobilized. This team volunteered their extensive training to help Nashvillians in need and save dozens of lives.

Joe Gaines

Waverly Flood Survivors, and Westminster Presbyterian Church

Long after the attention has waned from the Waverly, Tn., flooding disaster, Gaines and his team from Westminster Presbyterian Church have continued to show up for the families affected by the flooding. Gaines has overseen the reconstruction of 12 damaged homes, and is known as the heart of his volunteer team — staying long past when many of his team members return home. Gaines’s disaster volunteerism began in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast.