Caregivers Award - Sheila Warnock - Share The Care

And the award says, Com Inc. presents Sheila Warnock, founder and president of Shared Caring Inc., with the Community Service Award, Changing Lives. And this is our 7th year annual award luncheon. And it's November 9th, President and Founder Diane Cooper.

We thank you.

And we are honored to recognize you. She said she was honored, but I was honored to recognize you.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Diane. Thank you. To the, to the Caregivers Outreach Ministry Empowerment. Thank you also to Greg Johnson, who nominated me for this award with Emblem Health. I really appreciate it because we've done so much work together. But I am absolutely thrilled and so honored to be in the company of this room today. I truly mean that. You are the people that we try to reach. You are the people who are caring for your friends, your loved ones, your neighbors, and you're very hard to reach because you're always caregiving. So I could never get you in a room together to hear about what Share the Care is all about. But first, just let me mention that I never planned to do this work ever. In fact, there were two careers that I never had any interest in because my mother was a nurse and my dad was a teacher, and the last thing I wanted to do was either one of those. So I find it very ironic that after a bunch of life experiences, I find myself teaching people about caregiving. If my parents were here, and they probably are. Hey, Mom and Pop, you never would have guessed. I came to this work through 3 caregiving experiences, primary caregiving experiences. First, I took care of my mom on my own. I mean, solitary caregiver, long distance, and I know all of you in this room understand I understand what that is like, what it's like to be depressed or isolated or just your whole life becomes caregiving. And I also at the same time was helping my friend, as Diane mentioned, who had cancer. She was a divorced mom with two kids. And after her cancer advanced, she couldn't handle it alone anymore with just some support from me, so a meeting was called And 12 of her friends who didn't know each other got together and committed that night to helping her. And we did so for the next 3 and a half years until she passed away. And we figured out how to do it so no one person had too much to do. So that everybody could feel comfortable giving what they could give and the time they could give. And after our friend died, we were asked to help other groups start. And in teaching them, we realized, wow, this needs to be put on paper so that other people don't have to reinvent the wheel. And it was particularly strong in me because I had been a solitary caregiver, and I could accomplish so much more being part of a group. So we wrote Share the Care: How to Organize a Group to Care for Someone Who Is Seriously Ill. It takes all those offers of, "Gee, what can I do to help?" How many times have you all heard that one? And nothing happens. This is a way for your friends and neighbors to help but not be overwhelmed themselves. And I have lots of material over there. I offer it to you. To take with you. I didn't start doing this full-time until my co-author and her dad were diagnosed with brain tumors in 2002, and she needed a Share the Care group. And they both passed away 10 months later, within 12 hours of each other, and it was almost like an alarm going off from God saying, Hey, Sheila, how much is it going to take for you to get moving here? And that's why we created Charity Caregiving, to bring the word to you and your loved ones so everybody can help and be part of the solution. Because it's all about love. And my gosh, this room is filled with love. Thank you. Thank you so much.