Pamela Catherine White of Nashville, Tennessee

November 19, 1946 - March 13, 2021

Pamela Catherine Green White, 74, died Saturday, March 13, after a 14-month fight against brain cancer. She had been in home hospice care for several months.

She was a career social worker and community organizer.

She was a graduate of David Lipscomb High School and held a baccalaureate degree from Tennessee Technological University. She held a master of social work degree from the University of Tennessee School of Social Work, which she attended on the Tennessee State University campus. Later she taught statistics to graduate-level students at the UT School of Social Work.

She began as a general-services worker for the former state Department of Public Welfare and spent six years with two time periods of working in child protective services.

Some of the families she counseled kept in touch for decades.

She spent three years as a school social worker for the Middle Tennessee Catholic Diocese, again counseling families whose children were in difficulty.

She was the founder and first executive director of the Nashville Prevention Partnership, a drug and alcohol prevention agency under the Middle Tennessee Drug and Alcohol Council. Hers was one of the few such agencies to begin on a federal grant and then continue to exist with local funding, largely contributed by local businesses.

She was a member of the national board of directors for Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA). In the first week of Gov. Phil Bredesen’s administration, she carried a request to the federal government for anti-drug and alcohol planning money which had gone unclaimed by the previous administration. She brought $13 million back to state government for state and local planning.

She established Community Anti-Drug Coalitions Across Tennessee (CADCAT), and trained as many as 130 community-based, ad hoc coalitions in strategic planning in how to address drug and alcohol issues in their own counties and cities. Many of these citizens remain active in the field today.

She helped law enforcement to draft new statistical models to better reflect progress in fighting drug and alcohol crime. She worked on specific intervention programs with the Metro Nashville Police Department.

As a consultant, she shared her knowledge and skills with several cities, states and the island nation of Bermuda.

She planned and helped start and run a drug and alcohol program used by the Tennessee National Guard, a program which was first among all state National Guard agencies twice. Upon her retirement, the Guard awarded her the Tennessee National Guard Distinguished Service Medal. She was the second civilian to be so honored.

She is survived by her husband of 53 years, Joseph L. White; by two daughters, Andrea White of Atlanta and Emily Evans of Clarksville; grandson Joseph C. White; sisters Dorothy Strange (married to Glen) of Loudon, Tennessee, and Barbara Kendall of Nashville. She loved and was loved by three generations of nieces and nephews, greats and great-greats; and by several fosterlings, official and unofficial, led by Kenneth Sullivant of Springfield, Tennessee, and Amy Millikin-Park.

Her childhood friend Joe Miles of Foley, Alabama, should be counted as a lifelong brother.

She was the daughter of the late S. Kennedy Green and Willene Green.

She attended Otter Creek Church of Christ from the age of 3.

She spent her life taking care of her family. We were all her family.

Funeral arrangements are incomplete. Her body is to be cremated and a memorial service held in the future when it would not be a super-spreader for Covid 19.