HENRICO COUNTY, Va. -- Serving people and pleasing God are Robyn Roots' life goals. The Henrico nurse has decades of experience working with thousands of kidney patients and families.
"I’ve been partnering with the kidney foundation for over 20 years," Roots said. "I go out in the community and educate. I also go out to organizations, churches, and anybody that calls my company Kidney Keeper, I educate them and support them through that process."
Roots, who wears many hats in this community, was humbled to learn her dedication has not gone unnoticed.
She was recently recognized nationally and selected as a Presidential Volunteer Service Award recipient.
"You never know who’s watching you," Root said. "You never know who’s gleaning what you’re doing and so to think that people took the time to write letters of recommendation and that’s huge."
While the recognition was a career highlight, so was a documentary she produced during COVID.
"2020 Year of the Nurse" told the stories of African American healthcare providers and their struggle with COVID and how it collided with the Black Lives Matter movement.
"It was unscripted. It was a documentary, and we spent a lot of days crying and wailing because it was in real-time," she said. "But they said if I don’t make it through this, I want my story told for my family so that’s what was important to give the point of view for the health care team and I’m glad I did it."
"We were able to create this film and I released it the next year for Nurses Week and we won about nine awards," she said. "I actually wrote a song, "2020 Year of the Nurse" in honor of the people that died during COVID and the front line workers and just to everybody to share the story because people that lost loved ones, I don’t ever want them to think we forgot about them."
From career nurse to film producer to community servant, Roots said she has been preparing to tackle her next big professional opportunity. She’s preparing to take on the role of general manager of a minor league football franchise here in Richmond.
The film will be screened on Friday, October 20 at Liberation Church, at 5501 Midlothian Turnpike.
Doors will open at 6 p.m. You can purchase tickets for the screening here, and here.
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