Posted on January 8, 2002 at 4:30 p.m.

BIRMINGHAM, AL — Barbara Partridge, a volunteer with UAB Hospice (University of Alabama at Birmingham) has been selected as one of only five recipients nationally to receive a HOPE Volunteer Award from the Intercultural Cancer Council. The prestigious award will be bestowed at the Council’s 8th Biennial Symposium on Minorities, the Medically Underserved and Cancer on February 7 in Washington, D.C.

The HOPE Volunteer Awards are given to community-based volunteers in recognition of exceptional service in the areas of cancer control, prevention, treatment or survivorship in minority and medically underserved communities in the United States.

Partridge has been a volunteer for UAB Hospice since 1995. Many of the individuals and families she assists through hospice are facing cancer.

“She is a hospice SWAT team all by herself,” says Dr. John Shuster, director of UAB’s Center for Palliative Care. “She brings love, compassion, devotion and, most of all, her precious time to the families that she serves.”

Through recognition of volunteers like Partridge, the Intercultural Cancer Council works to shine a spotlight on the disproportionate cancer incidence, morbidity and mortality among minorities and person’s of low socioeconomic status in the U.S. The Council works to find solutions and make recommendations for the various problems related to cancer in this country.

“I wish for all people a good death with dignity and respect,” wrote Partridge when she became a hospice volunteer. “My goal is to be available to any assignment that can help an individual of the hospice team. I realize that I can’t change the situation of a person’s family dynamics or of death itself, but I also know that being there and the show of compassion makes us all more human — the giver and the receiver.”

Partridge will attend the Council’s symposium in February to receive her award.