This feature is one in a series that spotlights how our IS caregivers across Providence St. Joseph Health are living out the mission and our values beyond the walls of our workplace. This month, we hear from Santa Rosa Chief Mission Officer, Katy Hillenmeyer, about how Northern California IS caregivers are offering their gifts and talents in support of their communities. Katy is part of the team of NorCal site Mission leaders under Terri Dente, who help provide Mission integration and pastoral support of our IS caregivers in that region.
Outside of their daily work supporting technology and infrastructure, our Northern California IS caregivers generously donate their talents and time to extend God’s healing love to their communities. The neighbors and non-profits benefiting from their volunteerism are as varied as the caregivers themselves. Beneficiaries of their service range from homeless elders and prostate cancer patients to young foster children, Little League baseball players, equestrians, and thespians.
Here is a small sampling of the artistry, expertise and hospitality these caregivers have shared in Humboldt, Napa or Sonoma counties:
- Peter Dubaldi, sr. telecom engineer, has restored motorcycles to be raffled off to support CASA of Humboldt, which serves foster children, and to help combat prostate cancer.
- John-Michael Wilkerson, sr. applications analyst, and Jon Rathjen, end user support tech, volunteer with local theater companies.
- Tim Zundel, clinical informatics manager, and his CI teammates in Eureka pick group volunteer activities each year, such as serving hot lunch at a St. Vincent de Paul dining room, as they did before Thanksgiving.
- Terri Oliver, ServiceNow program manager, helps to showcase young horse riders at the Santa Rosa Equestrian Center. Any given day, she could be teaching competitors ride patterns, announcing the riders and their ponies, or shoveling manure.
- Julie Brimm, sr. applications analyst, volunteers at her PBS station’s annual fund drive and helped to found Wings for a Cure, a yearly event in Humboldt County to aid children and adults impacted by cancer.
- Marcus McJilton, sr. network operations engineer, coaches both his son’s baseball team and serves as assistant baseball coach at Rancho Cotate High School in Rohnert Park.
- Phillip Beaudry, field technical services supervisor, troubleshoots wi-fi and other IT needs for ten hours each month at First Presbyterian Church, his congregation in Eureka. He also co-hosts an annual Christmas parade-watching party at his church that draws neighbors under cover for hot cocoa, homemade cookies and crafts while truckers drive by honking their horns to the tune of “Jingle Bells.”
See photos of some of the NorCal IS caregivers in service in their communities.
Phillip takes pride in the ecumenical crowd that takes refuge from Eureka’s winter rains during this perennial holiday Truckers’ Parade.
“These days, people live in such an isolated fashion within their communities,” Phillip said. “Folks don’t always know their neighbors anymore. What we’re trying to do is recreate this sense of community.”
In Santa Rosa, CA, Jon Rathjen has acted in numerous theater productions, including playing the charming gambler Sky Masterson in the musical Guys and Dolls, for the 6th Street Playhouse. He’s also directed, sold tickets and concessions, and built and moved sets with the stage crew.
“Bringing plays to life feeds my soul and clears my head,” Jon said. “There is value to storytelling,” Jon added, noting how theater promotes self-confidence, creative expression and social awareness in its participants. “Stage productions are also where messages of tolerance and acceptance come across. These are values that I think we all treasure.”
Tim Zundel connects his team’s outreach through the St. Vincent de Paul dining room in November. Along with coworkers Serrina Chapman, Michelle Watt, Billy-Gene Sharp, Abbey McDonald and Sage Crum, Tim recently scooped out ice cream for 150 lunch guests at the dining room. That same day, they stocked the kitchen’s donated food items, helped to assemble meals on the tray line, collected trash, washed dishes, moved tables and mopped floors. Through a resource center at the dining facility, St. Joseph Health’s Community Health Investment team members also provide drop-in diners with clothing, emergency food bags, laundry vouchers, and referrals to substance abuse and mental health treatment programs.
“We’re having compassion for those in need and helping them with their own personal integrity,” Tim said. “By providing food without judgment, all those things we say we stand for come into play.”
Learn more
Please feel free to reach out to any of the caregivers mentioned in this article if the organizations they work with have piqued your curiosity.
You can also reach out to Terri Dente, Regional Chief Mission Integration Officer for Northern California, who supports IS in the region or to any of our other IS Mission directors who support our regions.