Ulessly (Bernie) Relf Jr. (left) and Dr. Carol Garvey (right).

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For the past 25 years, Montgomery County, Maryland, has chosen two older adults to receive the annual Neal Potter Path of Achievement Award for their lifelong commitment to volunteer work.

The awards, named after former County Executive Neal Potter, are co-sponsored by the Montgomery County Commission on Aging and the Beacon Newspapers.

This year, the county selected Dr. Carol Garvey, 80, and Ulessly B. (Bernie) Relf Jr., 88. They will receive their awards at a public ceremony on June 26 at Imagination Stage in Bethesda.

Always helping others

When Bernie Relf was a child in Alabama, he noticed that his father was always helping other people.

“He did anything to help anyone he saw was in need,” Relf said. “My father definitely inspired me.”

Relf spent his career in the U.S. Air Force and then worked at Safeway, finally retiring in 2000. He spent his free hours helping others, starting in 1980 with the Boy Scouts.

When he retired, Relf heard through his church, St. Camillus in Silver Spring, that the local Meals on Wheels program needed drivers.

“I saw so many needy people who couldn’t get out and get their food. I jumped right on that,” said Relf, who worked three days a week delivering food to homebound people, planning delivery routes and training other drivers.

At the same time, Relf heard that his church’s food distribution program needed volunteers, too.

“They needed support at the food pantry, and I said, ‘Here I am. I’ll see what I can do.’ It grew quite a bit,” he said.

Indeed, under Relf’s watch, the food pantry grew from one that fed fewer than 10 families to one of the largest in the D.C. area, serving as many as 700 families a week.

Relf managed the St. Camillus food pantry from 2000 until this February, shortly before he turned 88. He averaged more than 30 hours a week, overseeing every aspect of the pantry’s operations, including recruiting and managing 60 volunteers with good humor.

He led the pantry throughout Covid, as well, moving its operations outdoors and seeing that not a day of service was missed.

Even in a busy environment, Relf “tries to assure that everyone is treated with dignity,” according to fellow volunteer Patricia Kolar.

He was nominated for the 2023 Neal Potter Path of Achievement Award by fellow food pantry volunteer Joyce Romanus. Relf was also honored with the 2022 AARP Maryland State President’s Award for his decades of service to others.

“If I had to do it over again, I’d be willing to jump right now,” Relf said. “It was really worth it.” —Margaret Foster

Passion for public health

During Dr. Carol Garvey’s first clinical rotation as a third-year medical student, something set her on a lifelong path of improving healthcare access for all.

A man with a temperature of 106 degrees and pneumonia in both lungs had been admitted to the emergency room after being rejected by several hospitals.

By that time, he was “all the more weakened by being pushed around all evening,” Garvey recalled. “Since he didn’t have a private physician who could get him in, he certainly had serious access-to-care issues.”

That’s when Garvey decided that she wanted to work to make sure everyone could get good medical care. After completing medical school, she earned a master’s in public health.

“I loved the patients, so I decided I couldn’t do just a straight administrative job,” she said. She worked as a family medicine physician in private practice, taught at the GWU School of Medicine, and served as Montgomery County Health Officer for eight years.

“Over the years, having worked both on the private side of medicine and the public side, I know people in different sectors and have been able to connect people,” Garvey said.

She also continued volunteering, both while working and after retirement. She was a medical advisor for the Stepping Stones Shelter, serving homeless families; a physician for the Montgomery County Health Department’s Breast Screening Program; a member of the Montgomery County School Health Council; and a founding board member of the Primary Care Coalition (PCC), where she worked to create a systematic approach to improving healthcare access for low-income and uninsured persons.

Garvey was nominated for the Path of Achievement award by PCC’s CEO, Leslie Graham.

“Volunteering is something that I love,” Garvey said. “I love getting involved with organizations that do great things, and add what energy I can to the process. It’s actually harder for me to say no than it is to sign up for a volunteer activity.”      —Ana Preger Hart