Crisis Center rescuer

Tampa Realtor Barbara Wilcox knows what to do in a crisis. Just ask the folks at the Crisis Center of Tampa, a beneficiary of her ability to get things done.

The crisis center had spent years trying to get suicide-prevention phones placed along the 5.5-mile-long Sunshine Skyway Bridge across Tampa Bay. The third-tallest bridge in the country, it’s notorious for suicide jumps. Barbara called her friend, Gov. Jeb Bush, and took him on a tour of the crisis center. A few months later, six suicide-prevention phones were installed on the bridge.

“Counselors answer the hotline 24 hours a day,” she says, adding that the phones have saved quite a few lives since their placement in 1999.

And her hard work has paid off in other ways for the Crisis Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to mental wellness. As a member of the center’s board of directors, she recruited free television and billboard advertising, raised millions of dollars in donations and signed up major corporations for sponsorships. Her most recent project, a DVD showcasing the crisis center and its programs, is handed out to anyone who tours the facility.

Of her volunteer efforts, Barbara simply says, “[I have] a God-given love for people who are down and out. Except for the grace of God, it could be me or my family.”