The West End Synagogue Social Action Committee invites the community to Michael Mehlman Social Action Shabbat on Saturday, December 6, as Beth Wise receives the 2025 Volunteer of the Year Award. The award recognizes a WES congregant who has volunteered in a significant way in the broader Nashville community.
Since 2017, Beth Wise has been helping women who have breast cancer and have undergone a mastectomy or lumpectomy by knitting and stuffing soft, comfortable protheses. She refers to it as “a labor of love.” So many women have found most available protheses to be rough and uncomfortable and welcome these handmade versions.
Beth connected with Knitted Knockers, a national organization, while searching for a way to help her long time friend who was having a mastectomy. She founded the local Nashville group that has distributed more than 1,000 sets of the protheses. Her group, including her son, has grown over the years and provides Knitted Knockers free to anyone who requests them, as well as to women’s breast cancer clinics in our local area, including clinics at St. Thomas and Williamson Hospitals. clinics. The knockers are knitted or crocheted in all sizes that are requested through the website (www.knittedknockers.org) and mailed to recipients throughout the state. The group has been welcomed to meet at Bliss Yarns in Brentwood, which generously provides one of the approved yarns for their use. Beth’s house is widely known as “Knocker Central” because of all the knockers she keeps in stock.
As part of the award, Beth will be presented with a monetary gift to donate to her charity of choice, the Knitted Knockers Support Foundation, which covers the cost of mailing the knockers around the state.
In her “spare” time, Beth is also an “educational surrogate parent” for 4 Metro Schools students with special needs who are in foster care or group homes. She has been paired with students at Glencliff and Overton High Schools who need help dealing with educational issues, including special education, that a parent would normally address.
As if that is not enough, Beth also serves as co-president and Treasurer of the Nashville Chapter of Hadassah and treasurer of Hadassah’s Southern Region.
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