Community, Giving in Action

A Quiet
Kind of Giving

Dartmouth Health nurse Loren White has seen firsthand the outsized impact of giving to one’s own community.

nurses in a hospital corridor

Loren White (back row) is a nurse at Dartmouth Hitchcock Clinics in Nashua, N.H. Photo courtesy Loren White.

Published: 
By Jeremy Martin
3 min read

When Loren White, LPN, talks about helping others, her voice softens. She’s not shy; giving, for her, just isn’t something to advertise. It’s something she does because it’s part of who she is.

“I always saw my mom giving back to people,” White says. “Even a small portion from what we can give—for us it might be nothing, but for others, that’s all they have in that moment.”

That lesson has guided White from her childhood in São Paulo, Brazil, to her work today as a licensed practical nurse in family medicine at Dartmouth Health’s Dartmouth Hitchcock Clinics in Nashua, New Hampshire. Giving has always been woven into her story, long before she joined the Dartmouth Health community.

In Brazil, White worked as a lawyer and participated in a program that provided free legal assistance to people who couldn’t afford it. “Even then,” she says, “it was about helping people who didn’t have much.” When she moved to the United States, she found another way to serve, first as a nursing assistant and interpreter, then as a nurse, caring for patients and supporting families through some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives.

Her impulse to give, though, is also deeply personal. In 2008, White’s brother passed away in the U.S. His last wish was to be buried back home in Brazil. But his family didn’t have the means to make that happen. “All his friends gave a little here, a little there,” White recalls. “Because of them, we were able to send [him] home.”

That experience changed her. “It made me realize how powerful it is when people come together to give, even just a little,” she says. “If it wasn’t for the help from others, I wouldn’t have been able to honor my brother’s last wish.”

Today, White continues that tradition in her own quiet way, whether it’s comforting one of her patients, supporting a colleague, or donating ten dollars a month to support pediatrics research at Dartmouth Health Children’s. “It’s not a lot,” she says, “but if everybody gives a little, it adds up to something that helps children and families when they need it most.”

For White, giving is about choosing, every day, to give a piece of herself, however small, to something bigger than herself.

She sees that same spirit in her colleagues in the clinic. “I think most of us are here because we want to help people,” she says. “We see others giving, we see the difference it makes, and it inspires us to do more. We’re a community that takes care of each other.”

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