A smile is worth a thousand words— and sometimes even more. Southeast Lions board member Carla Fountaine had a smile that went straight to your heart. We all felt that warmth as Carla touched countless lives on the South Side of Columbus, both as a Southeast Lion and as the Community Relations Director for Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Carla’s passing this year has left us heartbroken.

Carla worked with hundreds of community leaders, volunteers, and organizations on the South Side. She served on multiple boards, including ours, and volunteered tirelessly for our annual Easter Egg Hunt at Schiller Park. As membership chair, she revitalized our club when it was losing energy, sponsoring new members and bringing fresh enthusiasm to our mission: To Serve. She was a fierce advocate for those in need, always showing up— even when she was undoubtedly carrying her own burdens. Carla inspired us with her love and unwavering commitment. The shock of losing her so early in life is a pain we are still trying to process, and it will take time to heal from this tragic loss. 

In her honor, we posthumously present Carla with the Southeast Lions Life-Time Service Award. Carla didn’t just talk about service—she lived it through her actions, her smiles, and her presence in our neighborhoods for over two decades. She was deeply loved by our community, and we will forever remember her as a recipient of this recognition as we continue to find additional ways to honor and amplify her legacy of service. 

As we honor Carla, let us hug the ones we love a little tighter and look for the good in everyone, even when it’s hard to find. Carla always did, and we can too.

– Lion Tom Grote

Carla Fountaine’s career at Nationwide Children’s Hospital was spent building trust and relationships with community residents through a longstanding pact called the Good Neighbor Agreement.

Carla Fountaine’s life was spent simply being a good neighbor.

She is remembered fondly for both. Fountaine, who in 20 years rose from a community relations assistant for the hospital to its director of community relations, passed away on July 26, 2024, at the age of 43. In recognition of her passion for the work she did and the people she helped, the Southeast Lions has selected Carla Fountaine as the recipient of its second annual Lifetime Achievement Award.

“She had this way of getting people to connect,” said Donna Bates, who received the award in 2023 and will present this year’s honor to Fountaine’s mother. “She never asked for any attention or recognition. Her goal was always that we can work together to make the community a better place.”

For the Southeast Lions, Fountaine served as a board member and membership chair. She sponsored new club members and volunteered for the annual easter egg hunt at Schiller Park. Carla was the spark that helped revitalize an eighty year old club with fresh energy and a more inclusive vision. 

She helped other community organizations as well, including All People Arts, the Classic for Columbus, the Parsons Area Merchants Association, Parsons Avenue Redevelopment Corporation, the Rickenbacker Woods Foundation and South End Café.

In Linden, she worked with the Linden Advisory Council, Linden Leadership Academy and the One Linden Plan.

“She made friends with people everywhere she went,” said Katherine Cull, a neighborhood liaison for the city of Columbus. “She didn’t have to be at all the Saturday events and neighborhood cleanups and everything else. I think it brought her a lot of pleasure and a lot of joy.”

At Nationwide Children’s, Fountaine was a big part of the hospital’s efforts to invest in the South Side community and its residents during an ambitious development plan that since 2008 has doubled the size of its South Side medical campus.

“Her work with NCH was her passion, not just being an advocate, protector, for the hospital, but challenging the hospital to be more proximate with the South Side community the hospital has called home for over 130 years,” said colleague Nicholas Jones, director of the Nationwide Children’s Healthy Neighborhoods Healthy Families program.

The two worked together on Healthy Neighborhoods Healthy Families, which addresses issues of affordable housing, education, health and wellness, community enrichment, and economic development to improve the overall health of neighborhoods and their residents.

The program began on the South Side in 2008 and now operates in Linden as well.

“Carla was respectful in a way that partners, friends, colleagues always wanted to be with her along the journey,” Jones said.

“But being a neighbor and advocate for others wasn’t just part of her work”, Jones said. “She never pre-judged others”, he said, “and she always took time to listen to, to understand and to connect. Her friends and colleagues knew her family. They shared meals with her. They received flowers during tough times of their own”.

Bates, who lost her husband to cancer earlier this year, said she received a call from Fountaine once when her husband was hospitalized. Fountaine was calling from the hospital, too.

Jones said she had a knack for knowing what might make someone’s day a little brighter.

“Although she faced significant challenges with her physical health that sometimes made it difficult to even get dressed in the morning, Carla was more full of life than anyone,” he said.

She is being remembered in many ways on the South Side.

The All People Arts Gallery at 1865 Parsons Avenue is hosting an exhibit through January 17, 2025 that is titled, “Carla: The Essence of Joy & Love.” In September, more than 20 people gathered last month at Common Grounds to share memories of Carla Fountaine and sip on lattes that the café called The Carna, after a name she had given herself.

Sherry L. Palmer, owner of Watercolor in Bloom and Palmer’s Petals, distributed packets of pollinator seeds at a memorial service for Fountaine and asked people to plant them in her honor.

“Our goal this spring is to have a butterfly and monarch gardens in every neighborhood through the hospital beautification program,” she said. “With this Carla’s beautiful spirit will resonate throughout the South Side.”

“Carla is missed every day.”

According to her obituary in The Columbus Dispatch, Fountaine described herself as Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s “boots on the ground” in the community. It’s a role her family said she served “with unmatched authenticity, rigor and love.”

She was also a voracious reader, dedicated foodie and knowledgeable film buff who was as devoted to her family as she was her work.

Three weeks before her death, on her 43rd birthday, Fountaine posted a thank-you to all her friends on Facebook and reflected on what she called an “immensely difficult” 1½ years. She said she had promised herself that through all difficulties she would “always be me” and pronounced herself “proud of the strides I made and will continue to make in this life.”

“If I can leave this world with only one lesson … please live every day to the fullest and make sure you are there when your people really need you,” she said.

– Bob Vitale, Veteran Reporter at The Columbus Dispatch