To be considered for this award, the nominee shall have performed diligent and faithful service for an Exempt Charitable Organization which is organized and operated to (I) alleviate human suffering or enhance the quality of life of persons afflicted with illness or injury, or (II) promote wellness through prevention of illness, disease or injury so that they are advancing the mission of the St. Joseph Community Health Foundation and the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ.

Comments shared at time of the Award:

I am pleased to introduce our 2012 Minette Baum Awardee Dr. Meg Wilson. Dr. Wilson has provided tremendous service to the community, especially homeless women. Dr. Wilson is a tenured nursing professor at the University of St. Francis (USF) specializing in Community Health Nursing. She has published research on the “Health Behaviors of Homeless Women” and recently, she had the vision to help USF create a health clinic for the homeless women and their children at Charis House. The Clinic, which opened in August of 2011, served over 100 people in the first three months. Dr. Wilson has also accepted a position at the Fort Wayne Medical Education Program to assist the medical residents with their required scholarly research beginning in the summer of 2012.

Meg actively volunteers throughout the community with different homeless shelters from baking meals to creating interventions that enable her nursing students to teach community wellness to low income children in Title 1 schools, clients of local food banks and wherever they can help make a difference. She is also one of the cofounders of the Healthy Cities Health Fair – Veteran’s Stand Down. Meg has also been active as a volunteer Trustee of the St. Joseph Community Health Foundation since 2004 and active as past Chair of the Grants and Community Initiatives Committees, Facilitator of the 2007 Low Income of Allen County Health Survey; and Member of the Executive Committee as well as served on special projects of the Foundation during the past eight years.