2015 Good Samaritan Award Recipient

Her Mother's Tragic Death Triggered Phenix Woman's Anti-Cancer Activism

Stop by Dodd�s Farm Supply in Brookneal most any workday morning, and you�ll find Sheila Jones busy at her family business, waiting on customers, helping unload delivery trucks, ringing up purchases.

Watch her for five minutes and you�ll see she�s a woman on the move who gets things done.

So it�s no surprise that when Jones lost her mother to breast cancer in 1997, one way she dealt with her grief was to get busy and do something to fight this horrible disease.

She became active in the American Cancer Society�s Relay For Life, a community-based fund-raising program that brings together cancer patients, survivors and supporters, who create teams to raise money at events held annually.

Jones joined friend and Charlotte County native Cookie Milton on her Relay For Life team, �Cookie Crumbles.�

�I could see Relay For Life was a very effective tool in the fight against cancer,� Jones says. The following year, when her friend Cookie faced some personal health challenges, Jones took over as team captain.

�I was very moved by the work of Cookie Crumbles and wanted to do something to help raise more money. Because my husband�s family is so involved in the trucking industry, we wondered what we could do with trucks to help the cause,� Jones recalls.

Brainstorming for ways to enhance the local fundraising effort, she and her husband Darrin hatched the idea of a Relay For Life truckers� parade, and the Truckers� Parade Against Cancer (TPAC) was born. The first parade was held in the autumn of 2000.

It was a natural for the Jones family. Darrin is a trucker and truck mechanic; his father Kenneth owns a truck shop and his uncle Kermit is a truck salesman for Virginia Truck Center. Trucking is a Jones family tradition.

�Our goal that first year was to get 40 trucks in the parade and to raise $10,000,� says Jones. �There had never been a Relay For Life team in Charlotte County that had raised $10,000 in one event.�

The event includes a pre-parade picnic for participants held at Jones� home property in Phenix, followed by the parade through the small Southside Virginia hamlets of Phenix, Charlotte Court House, Drakes Branch and Keysville. Each truck in the parade displays a banner � handmade by Jones and her Relay For Life teammates. Each banner features the name of a friend, family member or loved one who has succumbed to cancer, or who is a cancer survivor.

The truckers pay $250 each for the banners, and this is the primary source of the event�s funds that go toward the fight against cancer. Each truck in the parade has a banner; truckers can opt to buy two for their vehicles.

�For example, a person might want to honor or memorialize a family member, but not have a truck. They can sponsor a banner and get a trucker who�ll be in the parade to carry their loved-one�s banner,� says Jones.

The TPAC team also concocts other fund-raising mechanisms each year. In 2014, for example, Abilene Motor Express offered to pay $100 for each person who had his or her head shaved on-site at the TPAC event. �We raised $5,100 that way,� Jones adds.

The first year�s goal of $10,000 was reached with the help of Sheila�s father, Hampton Dodd, and Virginia Truck Center, for which Darrin�s uncle, Kermit Jones, works as a salesman. �They picked up the tab for all the expenses, so that all the money generated by the project could go toward our goal,� Jones says.

Since then, the TPAC event has grown each year. In 2014, TPAC raised $83,000, with 151 trucks participating. Since its inception the TPAC event has raised more than $575,000 for the American Cancer Society. All of the money generated by the TPAC event now goes toward cancer research. By any measure, this is a huge contribution to the fight against cancer. Considering TPAC�s rural Southside Virginia origins, it�s a doubly impressive accomplishment.

Participation in the event�s planning has grown in proportion to the parade�s dimensions, according to Jones. �We now have more than 40 people on the TPAC team helping with planning the events,� she says.

Sheila Jones remains the driving force behind the TPAC team, and for her effort, she was chosen as recipient of the 2015 Good Samaritan Award presented by the Virginia, Maryland & Delaware Association of Electric Cooperatives. She was nominated for the statewide award by her home co-op, Southside Electric Cooperative, and received the recognition at a surprise ceremony during an awards banquet in Richmond in January. 

Jeff Edwards, CEO of Southside Electric Cooperative, said during the award presentation that, �This recognition is long overdue, and we applaud Sheila Jones and the entire TPAC team for not simply raising record amounts of money, but for raising an equally vital resource � community awareness. Through your hard work, you give survivors hope, and you honor those we have lost.�

A native of Lynchburg, Jones grew up in Amherst County and moved to Charlotte County in 1983. Her father, Hampton Dodd, started the farm-supply business where she works in 1977. Her mom, Carroll Hamlett Dodd passed away in 1997 after fighting breast cancer for approximately three years.

Jones has been involved in the fight against cancer since then, working for Relay For Life, organizing the TPAC events, volunteering to transport rural cancer patients to their treatments, and volunteering for various other services and activities on behalf of the American Cancer Society. In and around rural Charlotte County she�s become known as a local resource for cancer information and services.

Commenting on the Good Samaritan Award, she says, �I am very humbled at the idea that the cooperative thought I was worthy of this. It really is more the team than me who deserves any recognition for what we�ve done. I was happy to receive it on behalf of our Relay For Life TPAC team, and we hope that this recognition will help the Truckers� Parade Against Cancer raise even more money for use in the fight against this terrible disease.�

The 2015 Truckers� Parade Against Cancer is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. Oct. 10, in the Charlotte County community of Phenix. The parade will proceed from Phenix to Charlotte Court House to Drakes Branch to Keysville, where it will end at approximately 5 p.m. Jones says good viewing opportunities are available along the parade route to witness just how many families have been affected by this life-changing disease.

If you�re interested in supporting the TPAC fund-raising effort or would like additional information, email Sheila Jones at [email protected], or call her at 434-391-4026.

�Everyone�s invited to come out and show support for this year�s Truckers� Parade Against Cancer,� she says, �We�ll have a good time for a good cause!�

You Can Nominate a Good Samaritan or Unsung Virginian

Recipients of the Good Samaritan Award and the Unsung Virginian Award are chosen by an awards committee of the Virginia, Maryland & Delaware Association of Electric Cooperatives (VMDAEC). This committee is made up of members of the boards of directors of VMDAEC�s 15 member cooperatives.

The VMDAEC Awards Committee this year is inviting readers of Cooperative Living magazine to nominate candidates to be considered for the two prestigious statewide awards.

The Unsung Virginian Award recognizes a Virginian who has done great philanthropic work with no public praise or recognition. The Good Samaritan Award recognizes a person whose good deeds may or may not have been publically recognized. The Good Samaritan Award recipient may or may not be a Virginian.

If you�re interested in nominating someone for the Unsung Virginian or Good Samaritan awards, please fill out the nomination form on page 36 of this issue, and mail it to Vikki Heath at 4201 Dominion Blvd., Suite 100, Glen Allen, VA 23060, Attn. Awards Program.

Or you can go online to www.vmdaec.com/content/awards and fill out the nomination form online.