Award shows no respite for his caring

Bart Adams was reluctant to accept this year's St. Anne Award.

But he didn't really have a choice.

"They didn't really give me a chance to turn it down," joked Adams, Wauwatosa resident and volunteer with St. Anne's Salvatorian campus, which offers assisted living, skilled nursing, rehabilitation services, memory and respite care in three residential centers and a nursing facility.

Adams will be recognized Sept. 25 for his contributions to St. Anne's, the oldest Catholic facility for the care of elderly in the Milwaukee Archdiocese, during the fifth annual HeartStrings dinner and auction in Menomonee Falls.

"I certainly appreciate the award, but we have lots of people who contribute a tremendous amount to St. Anne's," Adams said. "There's just so many people who give in so many different ways."

It was Bart's skill as an accountant - he's a partner in the accounting firm Kolb + Co. - that the Sisters of the Divine Savior (Salvatorians), needed when Bart began his volunteer work with St. Anne's.

Through his work on the finance committee, Bart helped the campus welcome the 43-unit Tovili Terrace, an assisted living center that began construction in 2008.

Bart also served two three-year terms on the board, including one as chairman. He was part of the strategic planning committee at St. Anne's. And he has served on parish committees at St. Joseph Congregation, where he and his wife, Michelle, have been members since 1977. Bart currently serves as a trustee of St. Joseph's Education Endowment Trust.

His volunteer work is nothing extraordinary, Bart insisted. Just his way of giving back, something that he and his wife, Michelle, have stressed in their lives and in raising their three children, ages 24 to 30.

"I have always felt that it is important that, when you have the ability to give back to the community, that you give back," Bart said. "I look at it as supporting those individuals who have a greater need and who are in a lesser position to take care of themselves, protect themselves. They need support from the community."

Besides, Bart said, he gets so much more than he gives. And, he said, he's not alone.

"I have yet to find somebody who volunteers and feels they haven't gotten more out of if than they put it," Bart said.

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