At Public Trust, our employees live and breathe our community focused values every day. They are active members of their communities, always looking for new ways to give back. We’d like to shine the spotlight on Joe Carroll, our Chief Development Officer. Joe has been with Public Trust since 2014 and previously served in the U.S. Army with the 1/75 Ranger Regiment where he was deployed several times in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. While he lives in Denver now, he grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and still has a lot of family and friends in the area.
In 2010, Joe had dinner with a friend from high school and learned that their friend’s wife had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. The aggressiveness of the cancer meant they would have to explore experimental treatments for a chance of survival, but the problem with experimental treatments is that they are often not covered by insurance. The family battling cancer was struggling to come up with the money to pay for flights to Atlanta to meet with doctors to discuss the treatment options.
After their conversation, Joe and some friends got together to see if they could help raise funds to assist the family. What began as a small effort to help a friend in need quickly grew into a larger endeavor. During the fundraising, it became clear that there are many families running into similar problems, struggling to afford basic treatments covered by insurance not to mention experimental treatments. Even when insurance does cover some treatment costs, things like mortgage payments, college tuition, utilities, groceries, and bills are not taken into consideration. As a result, Joe was instrumental in the creation of the non-profit organization called Helping Hands of Cincinnati.
