S. Jason Barnes

Bonners in Healthcare

Non-profit work, or volunteering, has been a constant passion throughout my life. There is no doubt in my mind that growing up in the Catholic Church laid my path to helping others.

S. Jason BarnesAt a young age, I began traveling with my youth group to serve with a number of non-profit groups and organizations funded by Catholic Charities. These included food pantries, thrift stores, Habitat home builds, assisted living homes and litter prevention programs.

As I grew older, and volunteered more, my passion and love for service grew, too. And when I reached high school, I found myself searching for opportunities to volunteer outside of youth group.

Ultimately, these volunteering outings introduced me to the Bonner Foundation. Because the Bonner Foundation offered a scholarship for volunteer work in the non-profit field, and because Maryville was so close to my home in Knoxville, obtaining the Bonner Scholarship at Maryville College was an amazing accomplishment.

My first year as a Bonner Scholar seemed to be going great. I was volunteering at various camps for children, Habitat sites and in litter prevention programs. Soon I established a primary site for volunteering, which was Keep Blount Beautiful, directed by Kristi Kell Falco ’01. With Keep Blount Beautiful, I assisted in educating children in Blount County about ways to recycle, conserve the environment’s natural resources and prevent litter. Work with Keep Blount Beautiful was extremely fulfilling, and I actually felt like I was making a big difference in the area. However, because of my school schedule, I began to see that I was spending more time with other volunteers than with the people I was ultimately serving.

I decided to find a volunteer placement site that paralleled with my major, psychology. I soon discovered that one of the South’s premier mental health facilities, Peninsula Hospital, was just a 20-minute drive from Maryville. I made some phone calls, but it seemed volunteering at Peninsula was an uncommon occurrence; people rarely spend their time around mentally ill patients without receiving pay for it. Nevertheless, after much persistence, I was wearing a volunteer badge at Peninsula Hospital.

Within the first few days of volunteering at Peninsula, I was filled with sadness, realizing just how much of our society’s assumptions and perspectives on mental health were terribly negative and skewed.

Devastatingly serious cases of psychosis do occur, and whenever I see someone mocking an insane person or the media downplaying them, I wish I could show those people what it is like to work with mental patients. Almost all of my time at Peninsula is spent with the patients, and I have found that, in most cases, they are just like anyone dealing with a hardship and life’s setbacks. I find happiness and pride almost every day I go to Peninsula, whether it be juggling to make someone laugh or helping someone take a shower and eat a meal because they are too impaired to function properly.

So much of what I do at Peninsula is helping not only the patients, but myself as well. As a psychology major, I find myself learning and applying what I’ve learned in the classroom all of the time. In addition to a great work experience to list on a resumé, helping at Peninsula will provide me with a head start in graduate school. I love helping people overcome their mental deficits, and there is no doubt in my mind that I want to make it my vocation.

I owe so much to the Bonner Foundation for keeping me focused and volunteering beyond high school; moreover, had it not been for the “Bonner Love” from my fellow Bonners, I doubt I would have had the encouragement and joy for volunteering that still I do. Bonners make it fun.

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