Catholic Charities names Volunteer of the Year By Mike Allen, CEO, Catholic Charities of West Tennessee

 

    On Saturday, April 27, we celebrated National Volunteer Week with a luncheon honoring the more than 500 active volunteers at Catholic Charities of West Tennessee (CCWTN) and the over 7,500 hours of service they gave to us over the past year!  We honored Mr. Al Gearhart as our “Volunteer of the Year” with our new St. Paul Award. The award, which will be presented annually, was named in honor of Fr. Tim Sullivan, CSP. (former Board Chair of CCWTN), and the Paulist Fathers who will be leaving Memphis this summer after having served our diocese so faithfully for many years.

     Al Gearhart is a tremendous blessing to our agency having essentially resurrected and greatly expanded the works of our food pantry. Under Al’s guidance, we have dramatically increased the amount and quality of food we are able to distribute, launched our new Mobile Food Pantry and developed Walking Bags of non-perishable food and hydration for the chronic homeless that can be consumed without the need for cooking or utensils. As a result of Al’s (and - he would be the first to say - his fellow volunteers’) efforts, our program was named Food Pantry of the Year for 2012 by the Mid-South Food Bank. Thank you, Al, for all you do to serve those most in need in our community.