HCA Healthcare Heroes: Girl Scout Troop 6000 leader offers girls a place to call home

Tricia Mora’s enthusiasm for mentoring the young girls of Girl Scout Troop 6000 is inspiring for all who know her. Her passion goes beyond field trips, badges and Thin Mints.

Through love and leadership, Mora gives girls experiencing homelessness a home.

“The girls come from a variety of backgrounds,” said Mora, a clinical denials and appeals manager with Parallon, a branch of HCA Healthcare.  “They come from places where their parents might just be down on their luck, some of the girls have lived in cars, some of the girls still live in shelters, but they all have a home with us.”

“Tricia is such an example of an HCA Healthcare Hero,” said Joanne Pulles, HCA Healthcare’s vice president of community engagement and president of The HCA Healthcare Foundation. “For all of the reasons that she makes a great colleague – that care and compassion – she takes it from beyond Parallon and in to the community.”

Launching Troop 6000

Through HCA Healthcare’s Community Day, Mora began volunteering at Safe Haven Family Shelter in Nashville, Tennessee. After seeing the positive impact Mora had on the young girls at the shelter, she was asked to lead Tennessee’s first troop for homeless girls in 2017.

The initiative, modeled after similar troops in New York City, allows girls to participate in badge earning, outdoor experiences, STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics), community service, field trips, and Girl Scout traditions and celebrations.

Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee started Troop 6000 as a way to provide programming to young girls living in shelters, affordable housing, hotels, and other low-income or temporary living spaces. The goal is to provide girls with the tools and resources to make informed choices, participate in healthy physical and emotional behaviors, and form positive relationships with their peers and adults.

All of this is to empower the girls so they may break the cycle of poverty and homelessness and propel themselves to healthy, successful, productive lives.

“Tricia Mora has been an incredible foundation to the program,” said Mary-Claire Bryan, director of urban membership for Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee. “Her attributes of generosity of time, selflessness, leadership, and commitment have led to girls experiencing mentorship, consistency, and care from a trusting adult on a weekly basis.”

“Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee is incredibly grateful for Tricia and HCA Healthcare’s leadership and role with Troop 6000,” adds Bryan.

Girl Scouts and HCA Healthcare: a shared vision

Caring for patients is only one part of what we do at HCA Healthcare. The HCA Healthcare Foundation leverages our culture of service, leadership expertise and financial support to promote health and wellbeing in the communities that we serve. As part of that culture, we are proud to have a deep-rooted partner relationship with the Girl Scout organization, lending our time, talent and financial support.

“Girl Scouts and HCA Healthcare have shared visions of leadership, service and community strengthening for years,” said Bryan. “HCA Healthcare has been an integral part of Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee’s Troop 6000 program from the very beginning.”

Impact

With HCA Healthcare’s partnership, the troop has flourished from six girls in 2017 to a now membership roster of 43.

“Through HCA Healthcare’s funding, support, and wisdom, Troop 6000 has grown from one location to three locations in the past two years,” Bryan adds. Meetings have extended beyond Safe Haven Family Shelter, to additional locations at McGruder Family Resource Center and The Salvation Army.

Since Troop 6000’s inception, the girls have:

• Earned numerous badges: animal, artist, athlete, cooking, naturalist, storytelling, etc.
• Gone camping, horseback riding and rock climbing
• Helped to construct disaster relief kits for Urban Housing Solutions
• Created birthday packages for people at Safe Haven Family Shelter
• Learned financial literacy and earned money for their troop through cookie sales

Mora is excited to see what the future holds for the incredible girls she mentors. “Seeing how the girls carry themselves, how they speak to each other, watching them grow and become more confident, is what inspires me to come back each week.”

To learn more about Girl Scout of Middle Tennessee’s Troop 6000 program, click here.

Parallon, a branch of HCA Healthcare, is one of the United States’ largest premier revenue cycle partners, serving hospitals, physician practices and healthcare systems by bringing deep operational knowledge and tailored revenue cycle solutions so that providers can focus on fulfilling their mission.