Born in a Hospital Hallway: How a Mt. Juliet Family Built a Lifeline for Heart Failure Patients
Most Mt. Juliet nonprofits are built around a cause. The Joe Beretta Foundation was built around a hallway: the long, anxious corridor outside a cardiac unit, where families of advanced heart failure patients wait, worry and, too often, run out of money and places to sleep.
Joe Beretta died of heart failure on July 2, 2016. His family had spent his illness seeing up close what few people outside a hospital ever notice. Specialized treatment for end-stage heart failure is available at only a small share of hospitals, so patients often travel long distances for care, and their spouses and children follow, leaving behind paychecks and homes for weeks or months at a time. Medicine was not the only thing they needed. They needed a bed nearby, a decent meal and someone to call.
A Mt. Juliet start
Lillian Beretta turned that experience into the foundation the same year, launching it here in Mt. Juliet, within reach of the Nashville hospital where her husband was treated. She leads it as executive director and was recently highlighted as one of the community's movers. The foundation focuses on the non-medical side of heart failure: emergency housing, short-term financial help, heart-healthy meals, hospital visits and emotional support for patients and caregivers.
What began as one family's response has grown well beyond Wilson County. The foundation now works with eight partner hospitals across three cities, including Nashville and Pittsburgh. By its own count it has served more than 1,500 people, provided more than 3,000 nights of lodging, served more than 1,500 heart-healthy meals, and delivered more than 1,750 holiday gifts to families spending the season in a hospital. It also reports helping more than 225 patients become eligible for life-saving treatment.
The holidays are the busy season
October is when the foundation's holiday outreach starts to take shape. Families with a loved one in an inpatient heart unit can spend Thanksgiving and Christmas in a hospital room, and the foundation's gift sponsorship program is how neighbors can make those weeks a little lighter. Supporters can sponsor holiday gifts, donate, volunteer, join its supporter group, The 25 Club, or sign up as a prayer partner, all through the foundation's website.
Neighbors helping neighbors
Mt. Juliet has a habit of turning private hardship into public generosity, from the long-running Sweet Tooth Auction for the Help Center to the many small nonprofits that started at a kitchen table here. The Beretta foundation is one of the ones that kept growing, and it still traces its roots to this town. If you are looking for a place to give this season that reaches families at their hardest moment, it is a good one to know.
Image: illustrative, AI-generated – not the actual location.
