Hands of Health - 2007

For their bold initiatives and fresh ideas that improve the lives of children in our community, the Endowment was honored to present Liliana Berman and Kathy Higgins with this year's Hands of Health Awards. A family nurse practitioner for Wake County, Berman works with passion, imagination and endless energy to break down the cultural and language barriers that many children in the county face. Higgins, who is president of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation, has helped create programs that encourage children to be active and eat well.

Ben L. Bradsher, chair of the John Rex Endowment board of directors, presented the awards on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 at the Endowment's annual Hands of Health Breakfast at Marbles Kids Museum in Raleigh. Over 125 community health leaders gathered to honor these heroes of local children's health and to learn from guest speaker Terrence McNally how nonprofits can unleash the power of storytelling.

As a family nurse practitioner for Wake County, Liliana Berman works with passion, imagination and endless energy to improve the lives of children in Wake County. She meets patients in familiar environments-their homes, churches, schools and community centers-to break down the cultural and language barriers many of them face. A bilingual and bicultural provider, she discusses issues with families in their native tongue and spreads information to local Spanish radio and TV stations. She established two screening clinics at St. Bernadette Catholic Church and at the Fuquay-Varina Methodist Church. Through these clinics she has reached an increasing number of children and their families and provided them with culturally appropriate treatment and diagnosis. She serves on the Office of Minority Health Hispanic Health Task Force and its Chronic Care Subcommittee. She organized 4-H classes for teens that boost self-esteem and prevent gang membership, and she ran school support groups for Latino adolescents. She has also introduced her patients to El Pueblo, a North Carolina non-profit organization dedicated to strengthening the Latino Community. Liliana's hands-on approach to emerging issues has been an invaluable asset to our community.

Kathy Higgins has pursued the mission of healthy lifestyles for North Carolina citizens for more than two decades. In 2000, she led the formation of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation, which she now serves as president. Under her leadership, the foundation has awarded $15.8 million in grants to non-profit organizations throughout the state. She helped create the "Be Active Kids" program, which teaches young children the importance of being active and eating well. She worked with The Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina and America's Second Harvest to spearhead the "Kids Café" program, an after-school program that offers tutoring, nutrition education, physical activity and nutritious meals to children at risk of hunger. Wake County's two sites served 190 children per week last year. She also volunteered with the YWCA of the Greater Triangle to create the "All the Right Moves" program, which, over the past four years, has helped more than 500 girls become more physically active through weekly club meetings, quarterly workshops and residential camp experiences. In 2005, the YWCA created The Kathy Higgins Gutsy Girl Award in her honor.

The annual John Rex Endowment Hands of Health Award honors individuals whose innovative work helps improve the health of underserved children in Wake County. The Endowment presented both Berman and Higgins with a specially commissioned bronze sculpture and will contribute $10,000 to each recipient's charity of choice.

For more information about the Hands of Health Award, contact Kevin Cain or McAllister Myhra at 919.571.3392 or kevin@rexendowment.org or mcallister@rexendowment.org.