PeaceHealth supply chain manager has a passion for volunteering 

Last month, in between overseeing a team that ensures the three PeaceHealth hospitals in Oregon are well-stocked with everything from bandages to IV pumps, Tina Noland organized the distribution of 850 Thanksgiving food baskets to local families in need. 

Noland is a supply chain manager for PeaceHealth and leads a team that delivers supplies, equipment and linens to the organization’s medical centers and behavioral health units.

The 42-year-old Eugene resident also fills her year volunteering and organizing fundraising events.

“I wish that I was independently wealthy, because all I would do is volunteer,” Noland told Lookout Eugene-Springfield. “I love it. It’s my passion.”

On Tuesday, Nov. 25, she wore a “Friends” TV show-themed “Happy Friendsgiving” T-shirt with a flannel jacket. She organized volunteers who were distributing bags of food to cars lined up in front of PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend in Springfield. 

Noland first started working at PeaceHealth 17 years ago, and she’s been volunteering for the Thanksgiving Basket project since then. The project has been a PeaceHealth tradition for more than 40 years, and as older employees retired, she took over coordinating the event about five years ago.

“It just kind of migrated to my lap, because I do a lot of other volunteer work, a lot of coordinating of fundraising events,” Noland said. “It just comes naturally to me to kind of help keep a project going like this.”

She said planning those events is a lot like managing logistics in her supply chain role. 

“You plan, you coordinate with people, you set up schedules and then you pull it off,” Noland said. 

For the supply chain team, PeaceHealth has a warehouse where they keep their supplies and they have to ensure they have enough stock on hand at any given time. They also monitor it closely and adjust inventory depending on time of year. For example, surgeries increase at the end of the year, so they have to stock up on surgical supplies. Sometimes manufacturers have backorders, and the team coordinates conserving supplies or making substitutions.

“It’s just a lot of different things that we’re juggling to make sure that we can still take care of the patients,” Noland said.

Thanksgiving baskets

Each basket contains two bags, one with canned veggies, fruit, yams, broth, gravy and stuffing, and one with a turkey, celery and onions. Volunteers also give each recipient a five-pound bag of potatoes and a pumpkin pie. 

The day before distribution, Noland worked with dozens of hospital volunteers to assemble the bags of food. But organization starts long before that. Nearly a year in advance, the project’s steering committee determines how many baskets it can build and the hospital orders the turkeys through Childer’s Meat Co.

“Turkeys have to be grown in advance, which is something we’ve learned in this project,” Noland said.

The committee works with hospital departments to host fundraising events, such as craft fairs and mocktail parties, with the proceeds going to pay for the food for the baskets. The committee orders the groceries from WinCo a few months in advance and then takes a box truck to pick it up a few days before assembling the bags. The hospital’s food services department stores the food until assembly. 

PeaceHealth employees, local organizations and community members nominate families for the baskets. Noland said there are no qualifications to receive the food. 

“I like to look at it as people may need something, they might be financially OK, but there could be other factors in their life contributing to why this would just make their holiday a little simpler,” she said, noting someone might have a sick family member and need to focus on taking care of them rather than planning a meal and going shopping.

A week before the baskets are distributed, volunteers call everyone on the nomination list to let them know when and where to pick up the food. Noland said it takes more than 150 volunteers in all to pull off the project, which includes community partners from the Eugene Emeralds and Oregon Community Credit Union. 

“I couldn’t do it without them,” she said. 

She said balancing the basket project with her full-time job can get tricky. She sometimes puts in time in the evenings and on the weekends.

“Luckily, I’ve always been good at multitasking, and so I can juggle many things at once,” Noland said. “And I have a very understanding leadership team above me. They understand this time of year is crazy, and they know how important it is.”

After wrapping up the Thanksgiving Baskets for the year, Noland starts on her next project — as volunteer coordinator for a fundraising luncheon and auction for the Volunteers in Medicine Clinic, a nonprofit clinic that provides free health care to low-income adults in Lane County. She also helps plan a summer fundraising dinner for the clinic in addition to helping with Children’s Miracle Network fundraising. 

“So I jump from one thing to the next and do all this organizing and planning and coordinating of events that just is a passion,” Noland said. “And it’s super fun, and it helps the community.”

She said that passion stems from the first year she helped with the Thanksgiving Baskets project. 

“I fell in love with just the event itself, the feeling that you get when you give back,” she said.

Plus, Noland grew up in Eugene and graduated from Elmira High School and Pioneer Pacific College.

“Anything that I can do that really starts to give back and helps make our community a better place to live is a benefit to me, because I live here,” she said.