Local social worker receives Lifetime Achievement Award

Published 6:15 am Wednesday, September 12, 2018

Jennifer Carter White, who was recently awarded the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award by the Alabama Senior Citizen’s Hall of Fame, said she has always loved helping others.

From her early days as a Girl Scout Brownie to the multiple clubs she belonged to while a student at Athens High School to a long career as a social worker for the Limestone County Department of Human Resources to an active retirement filled with volunteering, the Athens resident’s resume reads like a novel.

Just a few months after graduating from Jacksonville State in 1974 with an undergraduate degree in psychology, White began a career at the county DHR that would span 42 years.

When she first started, she did just about every job available at that time, including conducting what was then called Aid to Dependent Children checks in the home. To this day, she marvels that during her early years as a social worker, a mother with one child received only $64 per month plus Medicaid.

Initially, White thought she wanted to make a career out of serving children, but when she was asked to shift to adult services she found she throughly enjoyed working with the area’s senior population.

“I found I really liked them because they have so many stories and have lived so much,” she said. “I just got along with them very well. Plus, I think I realized I didn’t want to have to see some of the things the workers who worked with children had to deal with.”

White moved up quickly through the ranks earning the title of adult service supervisor. In 1979, she began directing DHR’s brand new volunteer program, growing it into the largest in the state.

Four years into her career, White became one of the last social workers to receive a stipend from the state to attend graduate school. She temporarily relocated to Nashville, Tennessee, to earn a master’s degree in social work with an emphasis on administration and planning from the University of Tennessee.

When she returned home, she continued to serve at DHR primarily in adult protective services and community resources. Heavily involved in the county’s Care Assurance System for the Aging (and Homebound), she served on its board until it dissolved in 2017. She was instrumental in establishing a yearly fundraiser for CASA to build wheelchair ramps for the elderly.

“I feel like the Good Lord created me to fundraise,” she said. “I was always very direct with our local groups, asking for the things we needed for our children and seniors in our community resource programs.”

About midway through her career, the state offered White a position in Montgomery as a regional director, but she declined.

“I didn’t want to leave home and I didn’t want to be a bureaucrat,” she said. “Plus, I could see the difference I was making in people’s lives right here in my own community.”

Over the years, White, whose father is a veteran, has also served on the board of the Alabama Veterans Museum and Archives.

After 42 years as a social worker, White retired in spring 2016 only to take on several more volunteering endeavors.

In addition to remaining active with the COA, White has continued to perform as a Prime Time Player in the Poke Sallet Follies. Proceeds from “follies” ticket sales help the Foundation on Aging.

Always concerned for disadvantaged and foster children, White organized the Tie Foundation shortly after retiring in order to help support local children.

She said they use the word tie in the name of the foundation because “it is the tie that binds, supporting the needs of our foster and needy children,” she said. “Basically, we raise funds to help cover what the state doesn’t pay for.”

Not one to omit her four-legged friends, White has become active in pet rescue because of sister Suzanne Carter’s longtime involvement with the Athens-Limestone County Animal Shelter. Lately White has been helping her sister ferry pets to rescue programs such as Pilots for Paws, once hauling 26 dogs to Cullman in a rental van. She also helps the shelter’s director Priscilla Blenkinsopp write thank-you cards to their many supporters.

White also helped the Limestone County Commission with the Yellow Dot safety program and she also helps with the Relay for Life fundraising programs.

When she got word that friend Caroline Page had nominated her for the Lifetime Achievement Award, White took it in stride.

“I thought, ‘My goodness, you don’t do things to win awards,'” she said. “I was fortunate because I could do a lot of good through my work. I’ve always believed that everybody should volunteer and add something to their community.

“Most don’t make an earth-shattering difference, but when you have a lot of people making small changes, before you know it you’re community is better for it.”

Now that White has received the Lifetime Achievement Award, she could be inducted into the Alabama Senior Citizens Hall of Fame, if nominated.