The finalists

Last Updated:October 27. 2009 4:14PM
Published: October 28. 2009 3:30AM

Elba Barnes, of Florence
Elba Barnes says it was the experience of caring for her elderly parents that inspired the Westminster Interfaith Caring Place. “My sister and I were homebound with them for six years,” Barnes says. Though the two alternated weeks of care for their parents, Myra and Thomas Crow, they had nobody else to help them during that time. After their parents' deaths, Barnes, who is an elder at Westminster Presbyterian Church, in Florence, served as chairwoman for the church's outreach committee. The committee wanted an outreach for the homebound to help them have more of a normal day. After months of contemplation and research, they decided the best way to help was to offer families a place to bring loved ones for a few hours or even a whole day. In June, the church opened WICP at the Brandon Ministry Center in Florence with a Sunday Caregiver Day Out program. The center has a complete staff, Barnes says, with a nurse, social worker and nursing assistants. “They have all the capabilities to provide hands-on care,” she says. The 5,500-square-foot facility offers arts and crafts, music, a cafe and coffee shop, a library and exercise area. Nutritional meals are provided by Rhoda P's Catering Service. “It's a beautiful, bright, happy space,” Barnes says. Now Barnes hopes to raise the money needed to open the adult day service facility during the week. “Our Sunday clients want the weekday program,” she says. “We've had such wonderful repsonses from daughters and spouses of clients. One called and said, ‘I can hear the joy in my mother's voice again.'” WICP recently held its second fundraiser at Trinity Episcopal Church in Florence. “It helps to think about these people and who they were and what they contributed in their life,” Barnes says. “They are often leaders of yesterday, and they just deserve the best.”


Elizabeth Lane, of Florence
After her husband died in 2002, Elizabeth Lane went through a period of mourning. “One of the things that happens after you lose your spouse is that you don't have the energy to do anything at all,” she says. One of those things for Lane was cooking. “It was one of the things we truly enjoyed,” Lane says. “He was a superb chef.” But after his death, Lane says she knew that for her, cooking would never be the same. After some time passed, she decided to try cooking again. “I did some minor remodeling in the kitchen first,” she says, “just to make it a little bit different so that the kitchen would be just mine.” Then she invited a few friends who also had lost a family member for dinner. The dinner was a place for them to “just be themselves,” Lane says, with no speakers or formalities. “It was just a time where you didn't have to worry about what people think of you, where you could cry if you wanted to,” Lane says. This dinner has turned into a monthly affair with about 16 people attending regularly. “We were people who really didn't know each other or were just casual acquaintances, and we've become friends,” Lane says. She says during her grief period, someone suggested she keep a journal. “I thought, ‘why?' I don't know anyone who would want to read it,” Lane says. But then one of her friends lost her husband and was told by another she had a year to grieve and then it was time to get on with her life. “I thought, ‘bull!'” Lane says. “I started writing the book that night.” The response to the book, “Listen to the Whispers, A Walk in Widowhood,” has been unexpected she says. One woman told Lane “the reason the book is so important is that it made me feel normal again,” Lane says. She is working on another book about rebuilding the other half of yourself after the death of a spouse.


Laura Milligan, of Muscle Shoals
Laura Milligan found her calling at an early age. She was 15 when she founded “A Chance to Dance,” a program that teaches dance to children with special needs. “My mother works in the school system with special needs kids,” Milligan says. “They always touched my heart. It made me really appreciate what I have.” She says she started trying to find something she could do for the children and realized there were no opportunities in this area for them to dance. “That was how I could use the talents God gave me to work with them,” she says. In 2008, Millian opened the Next Generation Dance studio in Muscle Shoals. Along with her regular classes, she offers a free weekly class geared to children with all kinds of needs, whether they are physical or mental. “I'm like a big dreamer,” she says. “I always had a dream and goal to open a studio. I planned on going to college and getting a degree and one day opening a studio.” At 21, Milligan is studying elementary education at the University of North Alabama. She also is Miss UNA 2009. “I'm going to finish my degree, but my heart is at the dance studio,” she says. “I enjoy teaching much more than being in the spotlight myself.” The studio affords her the opportunity to work with the children she most wants to reach. “It gave me a place to do classes,” she says. Now she just wants to spread the news about her program so more special needs children have the opportunity to participate. Besides just learning to dance, there is a social component to the classes as well. “Parents have said when they had a birthday party for their child nobody came,” says Kay Milligan, Laura's mother. “We have had three parties this year, and everybody came.” Says, Laura, “This is what I want to stick with as long as God lets me do it.”


Mercedes “Mercy” Winters, of Florence
Mercedes Winters, who with her husband owns Trinity Ceramics Supply in Florence, saw a need she could fill in the community after moving here from Tupelo, Miss. “My husband and I had been doing (Empty Bowl luncheons) for years in Tupelo,” Winters says. “We tried to get the Salvation Army involved.” After Shoals Salvation Army officials attended a seminar in which the Empty Bowl concept was discussed, they decided they wanted to be involved. The luncheon was started by a potter in Michigan, Winters says. He was working on a project for his classes, and word trickled down throughout the ceramic industry. It consists of soup, bread and water, which Winters says, is the only meal many needy people get a day. “When the meal is over, you take home an empty bowl as a reminder of those less fortunate,” Winters says. The luncheon has been a tremendous success. “We get about 2,000 people in two hours,” Winters says. “It's huge.” It has grown so big that organizers moved it from the Florence/Lauderdale Coliseum to the Marriott Shoals Conference Center. “The Marriott gave us the use of the whole facility, but even they had no idea how big it is. They were so overwhelmed,” she says. Winters says that any problems they had in the past with parking and places to eat have been solved. The Marriott has provided tables in the hallways for overflow, and area churches have offered their buses as shuttles for those who park their cars at Veterans Park. “It's a really neat thing,” Winters says. And most important, the money raised goes to help those less fortunate. “I didn't realize how many people need us this year,” Winters says. “Here I am in my own bubble thinking life is grand, but you just don't know how many people have needs.”


The nominees
Midge Akers, nominated by Laura Connolly

Frances Thompson Allen, nominated by Ida Owens

Margaret Allen, nominated by Marguerite Ann Parker

Dr. Kendy Behrends, nominated by Shirley Coker

Janet Milstead Blazer, nominated by Jennifer Kelley Morgan

Betty Burdine, nominated by Irene Hogan

Patricia Burns, nominated by Tori Smith

Libby Campbell, nominated by Marie Jansen

Sherry Campbell, nominated by Becky J. Patton

Lisa Curtis, nominated by Peggy Pendergrass

Leslie Daniel, nominated by Bonnie Olive

Melissa Dollerson, nominated by Johnnie M. Dollerson

Pam Doyle, nominated by Mary Beth Pirtle

Joyce Foster, nominated by friends of Joyce Foster

Nancy Green, nominated by Linda Keckley

Kim Greer, nominated by E. Merceir Greer

Dr. Dorothy Hardy, nominated by Cinnamon Williams

Nina Hargett, nominated by Berniece Kasmeier Moore

Brenda Harrison, nominated by Steve Harrison

Betty Hodges, nominated by Panthea Hodges

Dawn Huntinger, nominated by Jessica Sanderson

Sara Irons, nominated by Glyndell Clemmons

Mary Ellen Isom, nominated by Jean S. Porter

Sandra H. James, nominated by Gale D. Satchel

Shelia Johnson, nominated by Sandra Holland

Louise Lenz, nominated by DeAnn Frevold

Beth Lewis, nominated by Katie Logan

Joyce A Mahan, nominated by Carolyn Pirdle, Betty Keller, Billie J. Lewis, Lucille Martin, Jean Crocker, Jane E. Pettey and Virginia Lambert

Norma Martin, nominated by Sonya Allman

Jeri Ann McBride, nominated by Marie Richardson, Lola Vess, Geraldine O'Dell, Bonnie Bradshaw, Ruth Moore, Marie Kiser, Virginia Young, Carlos Eghan, Michie McBride and David O. Cofield

Arlene McLanahan, nominated by R. Leigh Jackson

Melissa McGraw, nominated by Sharon E. McGee

Sheila McNutt, nominated by Danielle Elliot and Cindy Mashburn

Janice Clay Metcalf, nominated by Kenneth Metcalf

Selena H. Miller, nominated byArneda Heath

Amy Murphy, nominated by Jessica Sanderson

Nancy Muse, nominated by Jackie Tipper

Rhoda Plain, nominated by Georgia Barnett

Barbara Riant, nominated by LaNita Riant

Anne Roy, nominated by Peggy Steele Clay

Brenda M.B. Smith, nominated by Sheneta F. Smith

Geraldine Smith, nominated by Jeanne Smith

Dorothy Witt Tarleton, nominated by Louise H. Lenz

Valerie Thigpen, nominated by Ellen McGowen, Linda Barnett and Lee Cox Rhodes

Christy Beth Waters, nominated by Billie Kennamer

Judy Wurstner, nominated by Tamara Griffin

Peggy Young, nominated by Margaret Pigg