Junie Louise Dill

On November 5, 2019, at age 71, Junie Louise Dill earned her master gardener certification. She’s using the knowledge she gained to help troubled youth at the Florida Parishes Juvenile Detention Center. She logs over 70 volunteer hours a year there. 

After a decades-long career in nursing – she started in 1972 – Louise wanted to do two things: become a master gardener and become a beekeeper. She’s done both. And she incorporates both into her volunteer work at the detention center. 

Nursing, she says, taught her life lessons of patience, diligence, and attention to detail. Gardening teaches these lessons too. 

Louise says that as a nurse, you can’t consider how or why someone got into their current health condition. You just treat them and help them get better from this point forward. She treats the youth at the detention center the same way. She doesn’t even want to know why they’re in there; she just wants to help them see and believe in a brighter future. 

“Gardening can be a metaphor for life when you think about it,” Louise says. “It’s about the future. It gives them hope for tomorrow. We have to believe in tomorrow.” 

Teaching those life lessons — teaching how to hope — that’s Excellence Through Experience. That’s what makes Louise Dill a Peoples Health Champion.