Community Service at Cathedral Kitchen: An Interview With Shahrzad Darvish, MSN, RN, CIC

Cooper’s Infection Prevention team recently volunteered their services at Cathedral Kitchen in Camden.

Shahrzad Darvish, MSN, RN, CIC, Administrative Director of Cooper’s Infection Prevention Department, states, “It was lots of fun and everyone felt good. The volunteer in charge was impressed to see a department from Cooper helping out; they wanted to know what we do and who we are. I think we made Cooper proud. We served food and cleaned everything. Of course, we used most of their gloves – nobody changed gloves as much as we did, well, what can I say coming from a bunch of Infection Preventionists!

“Adrienne (Elberfeld) and Danielle (Majuri), thank you for inspiring us to do community service.”

An interview with Shahrzad:

  • What prompted your group to begin doing this?
    I was really inspired and encouraged by my leadership, Adrienne Elberfeld and Danielle Majuri, to do this with my team ever since the leadership team had volunteered with United Way.
  • How long have you been doing it?
    When I discussed this with the Infection Prevention team, my IP coordinator, Tracey Hamilton, found this place and arranged this time for us to serve. This was our first visit to the Cathedral Kitchen.
  • Will you continue to do this?
    We were so joyful helping out there that we decided as a group to go back around the holidays. That night we served 330 people for dinner. They told us that during holidays they need help as more than 500 people will come there for food.
  • What were some of your team’s duties for the day?
    We were divided into servers in the kitchen to plate dinner, and servers in the dinner hall to take the plates to the table. After the dinner we were assigned to clean all the tables and chairs and sweep the floors.
  • How did this experience affect you and your team?
    We were extremely humbled by this experience; we were sad to see the condition of some of our customers and at the same time joyful that we can serve them. We huddled at the end to talk about how this experience gave us perspective about our own lives and how important it is to help the community. We actually talked to our medical director, Dr. Raquel Nahra, and she is so excited to join us next time. We talked about bringing our children to serve the community, as well.

Jes Smith cleaning chairs

 

Shahrzad Darvish cleaning chairs

Meal prep: Tracey Hamilton (first from the counter with glasses) and Denise Polat (next to Tracey)

 

 

 

Cooper Infection Prevention team: (l-r) Jes Smith, Shahrzad Darvish, Tracey Hamilton, Denise Polat, Jessica McKnight, and Dennis Meredith

From left to right: Jes Smith, Tracey Hamilton, Shahrzad Darvish, Dennis Meredith, Jessica McKnight, and Denise Polat.