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Brenda Warren’s impact is felt in the lives of the countless students she taught, and within the facilities along Beaman Street’s medical mile where hundreds visit each and every day.

A longtime educator and school administrator with Sampson County Schools, Warren went on to enjoy a second career as the Sampson Regional Medical Center (SRMC) Foundation’s first-ever executive director, serving in that capacity from 2003 until her retirement in 2013.

There, she spearheaded fundraising efforts that expanded the hospital’s lobby and emergency room, as well as aided the construction of the Center for Health and Wellness, the Outpatient Diagnostics Center and the Cancer Center.

Ronnie Jackson served as the first president for the SRMC Foundation Board alongside Warren, its inaugural executive director. He credited Warren for her master fundraising skills.

“She organized the fundraising for all of that,” said Jackson, who is still a member of the Foundation’s board. “It was amazing the impact she had on the community. She always gave you the feeling that you were giving toward something worthwhile, and you felt good about it because she believed in it.

“She represented the hospital really well and, in everything she did, she represented herself and her community extremely well,” Jackson stated.

Warren died this week following a battle with cancer. She was 69.

She leaves a legacy of giving and acting as a facilitator for the generosity of others, which now serves to benefit future generations.

In 2013, she was honored with the dedication of a fountain in the hospital’s meditation garden. The following year, she was the honoree for the annual Tree of Love lighting. She jokingly said it would be the closest she’d get to winning a Grammy, but then turned all of her thanks toward a giving community.

“It is amazing to see what can be accomplished when everyone works together for the good of their local community hospital, its patients and employees and Sampson County as a whole,” Warren said on that crisp December day back in 2014.

She called it an “incredible journey,” crediting the friendships, volunteer service of many employees and the community, as well as the support of the administration, the SRMC Foundation Board and the SRMC Board of Trustees, without whom she said those contributions and the projects arising from them would not have been possible.

She said the foundation was much more than simply asking for money.

“It’s much easier to ask for others to join you in supporting a worthy cause when you have a vested interest and you believe in what you’re doing,” Warren said at the time.

During her tenure, Warren helped raised approximately $6.5 million through grants and fundraising efforts.

In the 2000’s, buildings were constructed, state-of-the-art equipment purchased and community events organized — a golf tournament, Partners for Life gala and the Tree of Love among them — that shaped and advanced the medical landscape in Clinton. The SRMC Foundation was at the forefront of that effort, and at the heart of the foundation was Warren.

Amber Cava, Warren’s successor as the foundation’s executive director, called her “one of the pillars of the community.”

“As executive director, Brenda was instrumental in the revitalization period of the hospital foundation,” said Cava, who now serves as vice president for Strategy & Business Development at SRMC. “She provided leadership on major fundraising projects, and her hard work is still reflected through the hospital and health care community today. As an institution, we are deeply grateful for her contributions and will remember her fondly for her dedication to our hospital.

“In both her professional and personal relationships, Brenda was a lady of class — full of kindness, generosity and a true heart for others,” said Cava.

Clinton Mayor Lew Starling, a longtime friend and colleague of Warren, agreed. He has served the hospital in multiple capacities — first as a hospital trustee, and now as the hospital’s attorney — since 1991. He has known Warren his whole life.

“She was a fine lady and she excelled in everything she did,” said Starling. “She had so many friends and she was able to get things done. She was an excellent fundraiser, but she was just such a hard worker that volunteers were so willing to work with her. She would never ask anyone to do something she wasn’t willing to do, and was the first one to get to work and the last one to leave.”

“But for her, I don’t think we’d have the Wellness Center or some of these other facilities.”

In all, her career of service spanned 41 years, first as an educator for 31 years and then growing the foundation from its inception for the next 10.

Specifically, Warren taught for 22 years at Hobbton Elementary School. She was in administration for nine years after that, serving as an assistant principal at Hobbton High and Hobbton Elementary before assuming the principalship at Hobbton Middle for four years, then Union Elementary for her final three.

“She has touched the lives of many throughout the county, not just in Newton Grove,” said Susan Warren, head of testing and accountability for Sampson County Schools. She was hired by Brenda in 1997 when she was the principal at Hobbton Middle. “She will surely be missed.”

Her impact was felt not just in schools and around the hospital campus.

She was also a very active member of Newton Grove Methodist Church, where she served as pianist, Sunday School teacher and recording secretary, as well as with the United Methodist Women. She was similarly involved in the community, including with U Care, the Clinton-Sampson Chamber of Commerce and the United Way of Sampson County.

Still, perhaps her greatest accomplishment was getting the SRMC Foundation off the ground.

The paperwork for the foundation’s establishment was actually on file for more than 10 years until the early 2000’s. The desire to build the Center for Health and Wellness necessitated outside help in gathering donations, and that’s when the foundation really started.

A few solicitations in 2002-03 locally showed there was a groundswell of support for advancing local medical facilities. Warren was hired in spring 2003 following the foundation board’s formation the prior year.

Jackson recalled when Warren came to his office one day in early 2003. She heard the new foundation needed a director and, encouraged by her husband Gerald, she inquired about the position. She was mulling retirement as principal of Union Elementary, and was contemplating a second career.

Jackson immediately got on the phone with then-hospital CEO Larry Chewning.

“This is a great opportunity,” Jackson recalled telling Chewning. “I don’t think you need to pass up on this.”

He didn’t — and the rest is history.

Little more than a year later, the funding goal was reached to build the Center for Health and Wellness, which Warren upon her retirement would call the highlight of her career. In June 2004, after just one year on the job for Warren, the $3 million goal to build the Center for Health and Wellness was reached. The center was opened in 2005 and soon received state recognition.

The cancer center was the second big project, a facility that has assisted a wealth of patients in Sampson and surrounding counties, as well as their families, in getting advanced medical treatment locally. Other facilities and renovations would follow in the years to come.

Now many are left to mourn the loss of a woman at the heart of that effort, who helped changed the landscape in Sampson County through her kindness, charm and tenacity.

“Brenda Warren was just a fine Southern lady,” said Starling.

“She lived a really good, full life,” added Jackson, “and that’s about the best thing you can say about somebody.”

Warren
https://www.clintonnc.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/web1_Brenda-Warren-.jpgWarren

Brenda Warren stands next to a water fountain in the Sampson Regional Medical Center meditation garden, installed in 2013 upon her retirement as the SRMC Foundation’s executive director.
https://www.clintonnc.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/web1_Brenda-Warren-1.jpgBrenda Warren stands next to a water fountain in the Sampson Regional Medical Center meditation garden, installed in 2013 upon her retirement as the SRMC Foundation’s executive director. File photo|Sampson Independent

Brenda Warren was honored at the end of 2014 as part of the Tree of Love ceremony for her dedication to the community and the Sampson Regional Medical Center. She is pictured with Clinton Mayor Lew Starling.
https://www.clintonnc.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/web1_Tree-of-Love_003.jpgBrenda Warren was honored at the end of 2014 as part of the Tree of Love ceremony for her dedication to the community and the Sampson Regional Medical Center. She is pictured with Clinton Mayor Lew Starling. File photo|Sampson Independent

Brenda Warren was a proud ‘Nana’ and mother, and a mother figure, teacher and mentor to countless others, having spent a great deal of her life as an educator.
https://www.clintonnc.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/web1_Warren-baby.jpgBrenda Warren was a proud ‘Nana’ and mother, and a mother figure, teacher and mentor to countless others, having spent a great deal of her life as an educator. Courtesy photo

Brenda Warren, second from right, was honored in 2014 during the annual Tree of Love lighting ceremony at the Sampson Regional Medical Center. She was wholly dedicated to the community, its youth and those who sought medical aid, spending a second career raising funds to build and expand healthcare facilities locally. Here, she is pictured with her husband Gerald Warren and other family members.
https://www.clintonnc.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/web1_Tree-of-Love_001.jpgBrenda Warren, second from right, was honored in 2014 during the annual Tree of Love lighting ceremony at the Sampson Regional Medical Center. She was wholly dedicated to the community, its youth and those who sought medical aid, spending a second career raising funds to build and expand healthcare facilities locally. Here, she is pictured with her husband Gerald Warren and other family members. File photo|Sampson Independent
Indelible mark made in schools, medical landscape

By Chris Berendt

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Editor Chris Berendt can be reached at 910-592-8137 ext. 2587.