Robin Jackson, Executive Director at Morning Pointe of Hixson (TN) Assisted Living and Memory Care, loves serving others. She has been at the campus for more than four years and has worked in the healthcare and senior living field for 28 years.
Since October of 2021, her heart for service has also found fulfillment not just in serving the residents and associates at Morning Pointe but also for serving those in need outside of her daily job.
It started when Rob Pollard, Vice President of Operations for Morning Pointe Senior Living, encouraged Robin to use her paid time off she had accumulated.
“I would just go to work and go home,” Robin explained. “I needed another purpose in my life. I always wanted to volunteer, but I wanted it to be at the right place.”
Robin did some research and kept coming back to Remote Area Medical (RAM), a nonprofit organization that hosts free health clinics around the country. The clinics provide medical, dental, and vision services at no cost to individuals with or without insurance, often in very rural or impoverished areas. Hundreds of people attend the clinics, oftentimes parking at the venue overnight to ensure they are in line as soon as the clinic opens.
“The goal is to make sure that no one is left behind in health care,” Robin said.
When one of the associates at Morning Pointe of Hixson asked Robin how her search for a place to volunteer was going, and when Robin told her she was looking into RAM, the associate got excited. She had also volunteered with the organization before.
“Promise me you’ll do one clinic,” the associate said.
Robin signed up, and on Oct. 15, a Friday, she attended her first RAM clinic in Rutledge, Tennessee. She volunteered to help with registering the attendees. It was life-changing, and she cried on the way home.
“We live in our bubble sometimes,” Robin shared. “God blew my bubble that weekend.”
Robin was hooked. Since then, she has volunteered at more than 30 clinics, helping in various areas, such as education, in addition to registration. She gives lots of hugs. And she doesn’t stay close to home, either. She has traveled to Kentucky, New York, Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Oklahoma.
“Every clinic, I have a moment,” Robin said. “A patient will always affect me with a story.”
For example, after a tornado in western Kentucky, an older man who had lost his glasses attended the clinic. He had been wearing two pairs of reading glasses from Walmart in order to see well enough until he could get a new prescription pair.
And at another RAM clinic in rural Kentucky, Robin helped register a 14-year-old girl. “She was getting her glasses adjusted by the ophthalmologist,” Robin remembered. “She was crying and just grabbed my face and said, ‘Your eyes are blue. Your eyes are blue.’ She hadn’t been able to see that when I registered her.”
Robin added that she always returns to her job at Morning Pointe of Hixson with renewed focus and energy.
“I give here in healthcare with Morning Pointe, but I get to give in a different capacity through Remote Area Medical,” she said.
