Community Hospice & Palliative Care welcomes new team to serve the Alachua community

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Press release from Community Hospice & Palliative Care

Community Hospice & Palliative Care has expanded its palliative services to Alachua County and is welcoming three new team members to continue the commitment of care. We welcome Kizzy McCray-Sheppard, APRN, Allison Sapp, APRN and Mary Mack, APRN, a local team of palliative experts. 

Kizzy McCray-Sheppard, a U.S. Air Force veteran, was the Founder and CEO of Harvest Health Career Center, a training facility that provided nursing assistant, CPR, and first aid training. She has held several positions at the VA Medical Center, with her most recent position as a Staff Nurse in the Urology Clinic. Kizzy has held the positions of Acting Nurse Manager and Assistant Nurse Manager of the Community Living Center at Malcom Randall VAMC, in Gainesville, Fla. Her nursing career took flight in 1997 as a nursing assistant, and she later became an emergency medical technician in the U. S. Air Force. She obtained a Bachelor of Science in Social Psychology in 2002 from Park University, a Bachelor of Science in Nursing in 2009 from Armstrong Atlantic State University, and a Master’s of Science in Nursing in 2019 from Chamberlain University. Kizzy has worked as a critical care nurse at two different Level I trauma centers in the southeast and was a vital part of the Gainesville CLC receiving the highest evaluation achievements in North Florida/South Georgia Community Living Centers and being recognized as a Five-Star CLC nationally in 2018. She is an active member in her community and serves as a board member for the Oasis Family Center in Williston, Fla. Additionally, Kizzy holds the office of Director of Community Partnerships and Service for the local chapter of Gainesville/Palatka Black Nurses Rock Nursing Association.

Allison Sapp APRN is a three-time graduate of the University of Florida and most recently earned her doctorate degree in advanced practice nursing with a focus in family care. She joins our palliative care consultants’ team in Gainesville with several years of experience in palliative and hospice care nursing. She supports patients and families through discussion about improving their quality of life, goals of care, and advanced directive decision-making. 

Mary Mack APRN, a graduate of Gainesville High School, received her Associate of Arts degree from Santa Fe College and graduated from University of Illinois at Chicago with her BSN. She worked as a hospice nurse in Chicago and West Palm Beach and attended Florida Atlantic University, where she received her MSN in a dual role of Geriatric Nurse Practitioner/Clinical Nurse Specialist. After spending some time in Orlando, Mary was employed by the VA in the spinal cord injury and short-term rehab unit and in the home-based primary care department, doing home visits for two years. She transferred to the North Florida/South Georgia VA in the palliative care department, doing home visits and managing the Gainesville and Lake City teams until she joined Community Hospice in 2019, covering the North Central region palliative care team.  

“I have always had hospice in my heart since my first job out of nursing school and am thrilled to be able to provide hospice and palliative care again” said Mary. 

At Community, we are the people who care and are thankful for the opportunity to provide palliative care with a trusted team to help the people of Alachua live better.