Sometimes it's literal and sometimes a little more conceptual, but the idea of Team Brentwood definitely took hold during the two years that recently departed CEO James Duff led Brentwood Hospital in Shreveport, La.

“I used to do a lot of high school coaching,” says Duff, a finalist for the Community Leadership Award who is now CEO of Southern Crescent Behavioral Health System in the Atlanta area.

“I used the concept of being a team, working together, everybody fulfilling their role, everyone has a job to do—and without it the team suffers.” He had “Team Brentwood” imprinted on T-shirts, “and it just kind of stuck,” he says, adding that people wear the T-shirts—and their pride—when participating in everything from weeding and painting at a local senior center to cleaning up the community where the hospital is located.

“It's a tribute to the staff and their willingness to get involved,” Duff, 52, says. “It's routine for us to have 35 to 45 people out there helping us. It's neat to see people willing to give up their Saturdays to be part of something like this. … It's not just a single department or a couple of departments, it's just about across the board.”

When Duff scheduled a “renewal day” in the facility's neighborhood, Team Brentwood cleaned up trash and yard debris while meeting neighborhood families. “There were some obvious needs in our neighborhood there, in terms of appearance and cleanliness of the immediate area,” he says. “We try to beautify not only the grounds of the facility, but also go out into the neighborhood and do some of the same things.”

“Mr. Duff will take ideas from employees and staff and make them happen—quickly, too, says Jennifer Crow, adolescent therapist. “Let's not just talk about it, but let's make it happen.”

To push this effort further, Duff arranged for Team Brentwood to join Community Renewal International after a staff member brought him an article about the global organization. Brentwood staffers participate in the annual city Paint Your Heart Out effort as well as several community renewal workdays in various parts of Shreveport. “We came up with the idea to, about every three months, go into an adopted neighborhood and partner with them to do a variety of specific projects—grass-cutting, trash pickup, painting, whatever their needs are.”

The idea of Team Brentwood has become a little more literal the past couple of years when the hospital has fielded a team in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. “We had a couple staff members that brought that idea to me as something we ought to be able to participate and support,” Duff says, adding that the facility has taken to giving staff a different colored Team Brentwood shirt for each activity. “Everybody's got their collection now,” he says with a laugh.