Erin Tilly

Young Leader
Suncoast Hospice/Empath, Clearwater, FL

Erin Tilly, a first-year student at Florida State University studying Environmental Science, began volunteering with Suncoast Hospice/Empath Health Teen Volunteer Program in June 2019 as part of her long-term service project with the Largo High School International Baccalaureate Program.  She has been an incredibly engaged volunteer since she first started and has donated over 400 hours of service to Empath Health!  Erin has volunteered in almost every teen volunteer role from supporting our offices to leading patient visits, and because of her level of engagement, she was invited to become a member of the Teen Volunteer Program’s Leadership Board and was nominated for Teen Volunteer of the Year for 2021.

Before the pandemic, Erin made dozens of patient visits with her Cheer Team, by attending patient birthday parties as a Party Pal, and by helping patients record their life stories with the Lifetime Legacies program.  On her Cheer Team, Erin was the leader, and she coordinated all of her team’s visits to Oak Manor, a nursing home in Largo, and the team typically visited between 8 – 15 patients two or three times a month.  After the start of the pandemic with limitations made on patient visits, she maintained her patient involvement by attending almost every sidewalk chalk art project at local nursing homes and ALFs, creating art on the windows on the outside of the Mid-Pinellas Care Center IPU, and by participating in Zoom birthday parties for PACE Participants.  Erin also participated in two different teen video projects, in which she made a video of herself playing her guitar and a video about how to make lemon bars, that were a part of “teen video variety shows” that were sent out to area long-term-care facilities to “bring” young people safely into these facilities. Erin has also been a regular volunteer at Empath Health’s main Welcome Center.  She is very responsible and reliable, and she is one of the teen volunteers who kept our Welcome Center running during the beginning of the pandemic when many adult volunteers took a leave of absence.  Erin has also made crafts for our patients, written letters to our PACE Participants, and baked treats for our bereavement groups.  She has an incredible amount of empathy and compassion, and she is a wonderful representative of Empath Health.