Goodwill Employee Spotlight for February 2015

Hendersonville Goodwill store administrator Debi Snethen is February’s Employee Spotlight.

Doctors told Debi she might never sing again. Of course, at the beginning of her medical odyssey, it was all doctors could do to keep the former professional singer breathing.

A massive heart attack in 2004 set off a chain of surgeries, setbacks and rehabilitation for Debi that lasted seven years. Initial vein grafts failed. Doctors induced comas and gave her a tracheotomy. One surgery left her with no feeling in her left leg.

“I woke up, and I couldn’t remember anything. I had to relearn to read and write, walk, talk and eat,” she recalled.

When her rehabilitation ended, Debi began looking for work, but that, too, proved traumatic. “Nobody would give me a chance because of that big lapse in employment,” she said.

In 2012, a friend recommended Debi visit the Goodwill Career Solutions center in Spring Hill. After job readiness classes, she began working at the same center through Goodwill’s Transitional Employment Services Program. Within six weeks she was hired as an administrative assistant.

A year and a half later she moved and was transferred to the Goodwill store at 291 New Shackle Island Road in Hendersonville. Since then, she has served as the store’s office administrator. “I feel useful and productive,” she said. “Goodwill gave me the chance to start over.”

What’s more, she is singing once again. She is in a band with five other musicians called Debi Lynn & the JR Brown Band. They play oldies, Motown, jazz, funk and blues. The band performs at private parties and benefits, frequently for veterans.

“We have a lot of fun,” she said. “It’s a small thing I can give back.”

About Goodwill Industries of Middle Tennessee, Inc.

For more than 55 years Goodwill Industries of Middle Tennessee has provided job training and job placement free of charge to people with disabilities or other barriers to employment through the sale of donated items. In 2014, Goodwill served 28,159 people in Middle and West Tennessee and placed 9.558 people in jobs. More information about Goodwill’s Career Solutions, retail stores and donation centers can be obtained online at www.giveit2goodwill.org or by calling 1-800-545-9231.