Leadership Vestavia Hills Leadership Award Winners Announced

VESTAVIA HILLS, AL — Leadership Vestavia Hills announced the recipients of their 2021 Leadership Awards, which will be presented at an event Feb. 22 at Vestavia Hills Country Club.

Antoinette (Toni) Vines, founder and president of Mercy Deliverance Ministries, will receive the Distinguished Citizen Award, and Karen Odle, president of the Vestavia Hills Chamber of Commerce, will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Vines, a long-time Vestavia Hills resident, grew up in Mulga. As a young adult, she spent four years serving her country in the United States Army Reserve. From there, she earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, graduating cum laude, and embarked on a nursing career. She received the “Outstanding Student Award” in community health nursing. Unknown to her then, this laid the foundation for what would later become Mercy Deliverance Ministries.

She worked as a nurse supervisor at Brookwood Baptist Medical Center in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and as a clinical nurse in Adult HIV/AIDS and Infectious Disease at UAB’s 1917 Clinic.

Her ministry has reached as far as Hawaii and is growing. She oversees such things as monthly food-box distributions, a mobile grocery store housed in a bus, distribution of care packages to the homeless, the American Heart Association’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities Scholars’ partnership between Auburn University and Tuskegee University, and the development of a mobile health clinic.

Odle, a native of Jasper, settled in Vestavia Hills as a young professional and was employed at BellSouth and AT&T for 16 years, with her last role as a systems designer. Using her UAB degree in Management – Information Systems and her work at AT&T, she did freelance consulting for large companies throughout the area.

As PTA president at Vestavia Hills Elementary West, she designed and installed a computer in every classroom and trained teachers to use them. For that accomplishment, Principal Alice Laurendine nominated her for the Golden Rule Award from JC Penney, which she received. Karen then served as president of the Vestavia Hills PTA Council. In 2001, she was appointed to the Vestavia Hills Board of Education, where she served five years, including a year as president. She is a 1998 graduate of Leadership Vestavia Hills and a 2007 graduate of Leadership Birmingham.

In 1999, she and several other concerned Vestavia Hills residents formed a political action group called Vestavia Voters with Visions (V3). In 2002, she accepted the job of Vestavia Hills Chamber of Commerce president, realizing that a strong business community was an important component of a strong city.

During her tenure, the Chamber has grown from 296 members to 1102 in January 2022. It is the largest Chamber in Jefferson County and enjoys a robust relationship with the city and the school system.

After almost two decades as Chamber president, she will retire in late April, looking forward to spending more time with her family and especially her grandchildren.