The following is an extended version of the piece that appears in our April 2021 Top Docs issue.
Crystal Holbrook-Gazoni (Photo by Jay Paul)
Crystal Holbrook-Gazoni has a passion for taking care of others. “My mom always said, even as a kid, I would be taking care of my baby dolls and patching them up,” she says, laughing.
As a teen, she volunteered as a candy striper in her hometown of Coeburn in Southwestern Virginia, and she later moved to Richmond to attend the Medical College of Virginia (now the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine). She graduated in 1994 with a bachelor’s degree in nursing and immediately began working in the neonatal intensive care unit at VCU, a job she held for a decade until her curiosity got the better of her.
“I was like, ‘I gotta see where [the babies] go after NICU life,’ and that’s how I found home health,” she says. Holbrook-Gazoni made the transition to pediatric home health care, looking after the medical needs of premature babies and other children with developmental delays. Today, she works for Thrive Skilled Pediatric Care, caring for children from birth to age 21, and also works part time as a school nurse at St. Christopher’s School.
In her home health work, Holbrook-Gazoni noticed that some of the families she visited needed food, clothing and toys, and she wanted to help. She began gathering donations from friends and family, who then told their friends and family, until suddenly she was collecting a steady stream of donations just through word of mouth.
“She gathers these things on almost a weekly basis and takes them to people who are in need,” says Holbrook-Gazoni’s husband, Paulo Gazoni, medical director at BetterMed Urgent Care. “She’s a giving person, and she gives without expecting anything in return.”
The economic situations for some of the families of children she cares for worsened as a result of the pandemic. Some families were displaced; unable to pay rent, they moved to hotels. Holbrook-Gazoni cares for children from multiple families living in the same hotel in Petersburg. She brings them donated items and even paid the hotel bill for one family that was facing eviction last year.
She says food is the biggest need. She arranged for a food truck to visit the Petersburg hotel late last year, enlisting Garrett Walker of Slideways Mobile Bistro and Cheesaggedon, who provided his time, service and food for free.
Holbrook-Gazoni and the team from Cheesaggedon collaborated for a food truck charity event she organized for displaced families in Petersburg. (Photo courtesy Garrett Walker)
Walker says the food truck industry has also been affected negatively by the pandemic but notes that many neighborhoods have banded together to support food trucks while events are canceled. “I figured it was my time to give back to less fortunate people out there,” he says.
Chester resident Andrea Nelson says having Holbrook-Gazoni as a resource has been invaluable. Her 1-year-old adopted son, Tristen, was born with gastroschisis, where his intestines are on the outside of his body. In addition to weekly visits, Holbrook-Gazoni provided Nelson with information for all types of scenarios she was now facing, connected her with organizations that can offer additional help and provided equipment such as a suction machine for Tristen’s severe reflux. Nelson says Holbrook-Gazoni is always just a phone call away, even at night, giving her peace of mind.
“I love her to pieces,” Nelson says. “I wouldn’t have been able to get this far in these seven months [he’s been home from the NICU] without her.”
The two women also found commonality in that they both adopted newborns whose mothers suffered from substance abuse. Holbrook-Gazoni’s son, Nicholas, is now 7 years old and is already taking after his adoptive mother.
“Once a month we make sandwiches for the needy, so he’s my helper and he’s always wanting to give things to kids,” Holbrook-Gazoni says. “He’s always saying, ‘Mom, maybe one of your kids needs this,’ and he’ll pack it up and put it in my car.”
When Trisha Minor became pregnant at 41 with her son DJ and found out he would be born with Down syndrome, she had a lot of questions. “I cannot tell you how many times, if I knew it was going to be a day or two days before Crystal came, that I just kept holding on to the fact that Crystal would be there,” Minor says. “You would have thought she had like a super[hero] cape on.” Holbrook-Gazoni dove in and put Minor at ease. “She immediately explained everything to me that I didn’t even know I had questions about,” Minor says. “She told me so much stuff and gave [my family] so much information, but the biggest thing she did for us, besides being so concerned and caring, was she gave us the resources we needed.”
Holbrook-Gazoni hopes to form a nonprofit by 2022 to be able to help even more families. And she and her husband still have a lot of love to give. They’re participating in a foster-to-adopt program to continue growing their family.
With a garage brimming with donations, two jobs and a seemingly endless amount of empathy for others, Holbrook-Gazoni never stops. “I want to see people get help,” she says. “I see people struggle, and if there’s anything I can do to help people, I will do it.”
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