Hospital staff at Troy Regional Medical Center received a warm welcome and an enthusiastic goodbye at shift change early Monday morning from members of FarmHouse, one of TROY’s seven fraternity chapters, a sight they can count on seeing for the next week from the rest of the University’s six fraternities.

With the help of Dendy Moseley, Associate Dean of Student Life, members of the Interfraternity Council (IFC) came up with the IFC S.T.A.N.D.S. Project, which “stands” for “Showing the Appreciation for Nurses, Doctors and Support Staff.”

“They really ran with this idea. This is driven by them, not mandated and they’re really behind it,” Moseley said. “You can tell by the energy out there. I’m happy the hospital is allowing us to partner with them so we can show our love, support and appreciation.”

Intended to be a multi-layered approach in supporting Troy’s local healthcare workers, the first leg features a welcoming committee from either Alpha Tau Omega, Delta Kappa Epsilon, FarmHouse, Lambda Chi Alpha, Pi Kappa Phi, Sigma Chi or Tau Kappa Epsilon, complete with signs and cheers, posted at both the emergency room entrance and the hospital’s front entrance at the morning and night shift change.

“What these people have sacrificed for all of us over the last 18 months means a lot, and we wanted to do this in our own local community to show these people specifically how much they are appreciated,” Moseley said. “Whether it’s providing meals, doing work, whatever we can do to show these people who have been so stressed over the last year and a half that we’re here to help them.”

Dalton Cates, a junior marketing major, was one of many FarmHouse brothers cheering on hospital staff bright and early Monday and said they as a council wanted to do something to show their appreciation.

“Through the pandemic, they’ve definitely taken the brunt of it and supported us, so the IFC wanted to show them that we appreciate all of their efforts,” he said. “At FarmHouse, the ‘S’ in our acronym stands for service, so we’re committed to service and serving the community and this is just one of the ways we do that.”

Cates, who also works as a pharmacy technician at Publix, said he’s not sure what the next layer of support will look like because they aren’t quite sure what their specific needs are yet.

“I don’t know what their needs are, if they need PPE or more moral, emotional support like this,” he said. “There needs to be an ongoing conversation about what their needs are going forward, and we want to meet those accordingly.”

CEO Rick Smith said the support of the community has been invaluable since the onset of the COVID pandemic and that his staff is the reason they’ve been able to bridge the gap with giving good, quality care and the challenges of operating as a rural, community hospital.

“What we lack in financial resources, human resources and fiscal resources of our plant, we overcome because of the dedication of our team members,” he said. “The community has been amazing since the pandemic started with their support, whether it’s been food or snacks or events like Monday morning with showing our staff how much they appreciate what they do.

“This has been a struggle. In none of our lifetimes have we seen a pandemic that’s gone on for 20 months, and just when we think it’s getting better, there comes another surge. Having the community rally behind us in invaluable to us.”

Aside from the physical toll of long hours, no days off and constant stress, Amy Minor, Chief Clinical Officer, worried about the mental and emotional toll providing this level of support has had on their hospital staff.

“A limitation on visitors, severity of illnesses, not being able to transfer critical patients to higher levels of care… our team has really gone above and beyond playing the role of family member and advocate,” she said. “It’s a huge strain on those frontline workers with many hours taking care of the sickest that there are and having the mental strength to come back the next day and do it all again. We’re very thankful for this and all the support they’ve given.”

For more information on S.T.A.N.D.S. or to get involved, contact Dendy Moseley at 334-808-6600 or
dwmoseley@troy.edu.