Brenda Williams: A lot of people have no idea what it means to be a hospital foundation, and basically we're an arm of the hospital that fund the extras, the extra equipment to make sure we have the latest and greatest technology to help people when they need transportation or things to help them heal once they go home. And that's what the foundation's about, it provides the little warm extras that we can do for our patients and for our community. It's important that we raise the dollars to help our patients, and it's important when people support their local hospitalsI have to say that right now, Newberry Hospital is a very proud, freestanding, we're doing very well in all of our quality, safety, financial, but there are a lot of hospitals in our state and surrounding states that are closing their doors or being swallowed up by the big hospitals. We don't want that. We want to stay the warm community hospital that we are. We want to give the hands-on, personal touch as part of our mission, part of what is in our culture.

We have a 17-member board that, they are the ones that make the decisions, they are the ones that come up with the ideas to raise the funds, they're the ones that go out in our community and determine what we do fund, what's important, what would they like to see our hospital have. So they make the big decisions and they receive nothing in return but the knowing that they're doing this and it's a great thing. I'm so excited about the board we have and can't say enough about them and all that they do. They make my job a pleasure.

Coming to this community has been personally very special to me because I don't have a spouse, I don't have children, my family does not live close, and this is my family. And I know that when I have something wrong, if I don't come to work by a certain time, they're calling, are you okay, do you need anything, what's going on? So knowing I have that support, and these are people that I work with, these are people that, you know, they have adopted me, I am part of their hospital, I am part of their family, their community, that's very special.