About LIFT Grundy

Elise Krews brings experience as a program manager of large grants for Metro Nashville and a commitment to public health to her work of managing LIFT Grundy, the Community Fund’s Rural Health Resiliency Grant program that launched this summer. 

Growing up in Keithville, Louisiana, outside Shreveport, the plan was always for Krews to become a doctor, maybe even a doctor who focused on places like where she grew up—a place of cow pastures, farming, close-knit families and people sinking deep roots in place. Then, when taking a bioethics course at Centenary College of Louisiana, Krews came to a realization that rather than focusing on the medical outcomes of a small group of patients who would be in her practice one day, she was, instead, deeply interested in population-level health. 

“I was doing needs assessment in a federally qualified health clinic, and it seemed like we were seeing the same people over and over,” she says. “I began to really want to think about what in our lives as a community contributes to health more broadly.” 

In some ways, Krews went into the family business. Her mother, Susan Armstrong, started her career as a nurse, working her way steadily up at the local hospital from nurse manager to assistant hospital administrator. Along the way, she earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nursing, an MBA, and finally her J.D., which enabled her to be named chief counsel at LSU-Shreveport Medical Center. Becasue of this, Krews knew that hospital intimately. 

After college, Krews worked in compliance at that same hospital and made sure that medical research was conducted in ethical ways. Like her mother, however, Krews wanted more, and began looking around for programs in public health, eventually coming to Peabody College at Vanderbilt to earn an M.S. in Community Development and Action. “I thought about several programs,” she says, “ but I really liked the way Peabody combined community development work with public health work. It seemed like the right approach.” She was also drawn to an academic program in the South. “Community organizing has always been important in the South,” she says, “and some of the most creative solutions for public well-being have come out of the South.” 

Following her graduation with a master’s degree in community development from Peabody College of Vanderbilt University in 2018, Krews has had positions of ever greater responsibility, most recently managing a multi-million dollar public health grant for Metropolitan Nashville government. That experience is invaluable for the Community Fund as we launch the rural Health Resiliency Grant and LIFT Grundy.

Unflappable Hilda Vaughan is a trusted individual on the South Cumberland Plateau, known by many from Sewanee to Beersheba and Palmer to Pelham. In short, she is the perfect person to lead the Community Health Worker project for LIFT Grundy. 

When Hilda Vaughan was 12, her dad decided to move the family to the Bahamas and set sail on the Pattiwooz. “We had a rough passage,” Vaughan remembers. “We lost an engine in a storm and ended up way off course.” Hilda tells the story like she’s telling us what she had for dinner, so it seems like she is unshakable. That resilience is a huge asset in her new role as Community Health Worker coordinator. Her main job? Making sure that the Community Health Workers, who are hired by the area’s free clinics and Southeast Tennessee Human Resources Agency (SETHRA), act not only on behalf of their patients and their employers, but also bring a collaborative approach to navigating the rough waters of population health for one of the state’s least healthy areas. 

Through the Rural Health Resilience Grant, South Cumberland Community Fund is able to support its partners—Beersheba Springs Medical Clinic, South Cumberland Community Clinic and SETHRA—as they add Community Health Workers to their staffs. In the case of the clinics, these workers are significant additions to paid staff, and the hope is that the addition of trusted community members will decrease no-shows for medical appointments, get needed health information into the hands of people across the Plateau, and generally make health care delivery for vulnerable people more efficient and effective. 

Vaughan, who describes herself as restless, has been deeply involved in community development on the South Cumberland Community Plateau since 2015, when Nicky Campbell recruited her to be part of the second VISTA cohort. As a VISTA member, she worked for Grundy County Schools and then in an award winning inmate reentry program started by former Sheriff Clint Shrum and another VISTA, Dana Rasch. Working in reentry, Vaughan went on to start a nonprofit, Arts Inside, which worked to engage inmates with their creative side. Recidivism rates plummeted in those years. 

Vaughan is excited about leading three new Community Health Workers for the South Cumberland Plateau: Tammie Beers, at South Cumberland Community Clinic, Kacie Chambers for Southeast Tennessee Human Resources Agency, and Nikki Archey at Beersheba Springs Medical Clinic. “They have really hit the ground running, and are working together really well. It is so much better than three individuals working separately.”

Ethan Sherrer is the Fund’s new mobility coordinator. He has hit the ground running, helping to create our new healthpromoting rideshare program that is central to LIFT Grundy. 

Born and raised in Tullahoma, TN. Ethan was active in his church, First Presbyterian Church of Tullahoma, which had active mission and service programs, led in part by his mom, Christy Sherrer. After high school, Ethan attended East Tennessee State University as a pre-med student, with an interest in rural health. When COVID hit early on in his college career, he found that he was more interested in how communities react to public health challenges and switched to anthropology as a major and religion as a minor. “I thought that those majors could provide tools to think about what happens in a community through an unbiased lens. I was kind of looking for academic empathy.” 

Having grown up in a home and in a church that put emphasis on service to others, Ethan was quick to begin volunteering in his community in response to the global pandemic. “I got involved with a couple of mutual aid networks in Johnson City, and one of our projects was making sure people had rides to the places they needed to go-to doctors, to grocery stores. It’s really striking how many cracks COVID revealed in terms of community resilience,” he says. “We were all locked down, for sure. That, combined with more and more people working from home meant that community involvement really declined. The organizations I volunteered with tried to work against that detachment.” 

Now Ethan is excited about the work of transportation coordinator for LIFT Grundy. He’s been working hard on identifying software to support volunteers and riders and is making plans to get out in the community to publicize the services and recruit volunteers through all available channels from social media to in-person tabling at important community events. 

The Community Fund’s RHR grant will provide funds to help make sure that drivers are supported. It will pay mileage to volunteer drivers, who will be making sure their neighbors and family members get access to the medical appointments and health-promoting activities they need. LIFT Grundy is being evaluated by Katy Morgan, who is tracking data and gathering input from riders, drivers, Community Health Workers, and local leaders. This evaluation will help us understand what is working well and where there are opportunities to improve, ensuring that transportation options are reliable, efficient, and truly meeting the needs of Grundy County residents. By tracking progress over the three years of the grant, the evaluation will also help strengthen the network so it can continue to grow and better serve local needs.

Kacie Chambers has been a resident of Tracy City for nearly ten years. Drawing on her experience in community engagement, she now partners with SCCF and SETHRA to expand transportation access throughout Grundy County. Her commitment to collaboration and cultivating strong relationships has been instrumental in advancing initiatives that benefit the local community.

Tammy Beers serves the South Cumberland Community Clinic as a community health worker in what she describes as her dream job. Tammy is a proud resident of Tracy City and takes seriously her role as a friend to her place. She has a degree in psychology and loves to help people and make a difference in healthy lives through meaningful connections.

Nikki Archey serves the Beersheba Springs Medical Clinic as a community health worker. Nikki has a deep passion for helping others and a strong desire to improve health outcomes in underserved communities and believes CHWs play a vital role in bridging gaps between healthcare providers and the people they serve, particularly in rural areas.