On his vacation, Claude Stubblefield spent a week rebuilding homes and churches along the Gulf Coast damaged by Hurricane Katrina. David Edwards took an extra year to finish medical school so that he could travel to South Africa to help people with HIV.
For these and other acts, Stubblefield, a supervisor with the Facilities Management Department (FMD), and Edwards, a recent graduate of the Duke School of Medicine, are the winners of the 2007 Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award, one of the university's top awards for community service.
On his trip to the Gulf Coast, Stubblefield helped rebuild a church and then repaired a house occupied by a mother and her six children.
A Helping Hand
Claude Stubblefield helps build a ramp at a house of a sick co-worker.
Facility Management employees have been busy lending their construction and repair expertise to many local and statewide projects over the past decade. Claude Stubblefield was one of the FMD employees who helped residents of Tarboro rebuild in 2000 following the floods there in the wake of Hurricane Floyd. For more, click here.
"We painted and repaired the wood, put in new doors and floors. The only thing we didn't get done were the kitchen cabinets," Stubblefield said.
Stubblefield said he was not prepared for the level of devastation that he saw on that trip.
"It was worse then what they showed on television," Stubblefield said. "In this one house, the water line was at the ceiling and the smell from sewage and other elements from the house not being opened for a long time just pushed you back."
Closer to home, Stubblefield has led projects to make repairs and improvements at some of the schools in the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership. The aim of the partnership is to improve the quality of life in the 12 neighborhoods that immediately surround the campus as well as boost achievement in the seven public schools that serve those neighborhoods.
At the Carter Community Charter School, for instance, Stubblefield, a member of his staff and about 100 medical school students joined forces to paint the school. Stubblefield and his staff also repaired a leaky roof.
"The work that I do is for the Lord," Stubblefield said. "The main goal is to do what God wants me to do."
John Cline, assistant director of FMD, thinks Stubblefield is a worthy choice for the Sullivan Award. "Claude expends an extraordinary amount of his own time, personal energy and resources to help others," Cline said.
Edwards has traveled the globe on various medical relief efforts. On his first international relief trip, after his freshman year in college, Edwards said that his eyes were opened to the suffering present in the world.
"It was the most difficult and challenging thing I had done in my life up until that point," Edwards said of his trip to India.
In South Africa, Edwards managed an HIV research clinic, participating in a government program that provided free antiretroviral medications for HIV patients.
"I recruited new patients and assisted South African doctors with screening and treatment," Edwards said.
Keith Savoy, a network analyst with Duke's Office of Information Technology and a good friend of Edwards, said Edwards' efforts in Durban and in numerous African and Asian villages speak to his commitment to helping others.
"I regard him as a person that puts his heart and hands where his beliefs are. He practices what he professes. He recognizes that the humans who suffer can have their physical and emotional pains eased by personal contact and compassion," Savoy said.
Edwards' other volunteer work includes 10 years with the National Disaster Medical Service as well as four years helping at a local children's clinic.
Edwards believes "living a full and meaningful life includes not ignoring the needs of the people around you and committing a fraction of the energy you devote to achieving your own personal goals to helping others achieve theirs."
At Duke, the Sullivan Award is given to a graduating senior and a member of the faculty or staff who exhibit the qualities of Algernon Sydney Sullivan, a southerner who became a prominent lawyer, businessman and philanthropist in New York in the late 19th century.
"I read about Mr. Sullivan and I was proud and glad to receive the award because of his work. He had the right mindset," Stubblefield said.