On Monday, Dec. 5, the Vanderbilt community suffered the loss of someone dear to many hearts: Charles Poleate, a dishwasher in Rand Dining Center.

Charles was part of a program called Progress, Inc., which provides residential and employment support to intellectually and developmentally disabled adults in Middle Tennessee. Vanderbilt has maintained a partnership with Progress for over a decade, and several of the organization’s participants are employed on campus, including in the Commons and Rand dining centers.

“They’re as much a part of our team as anyone, probably more dependable than most, quite honestly,” said Greg Fields, the general manager of Rand dining who oversaw Charles. “Certainly they have their limitations, but if you don’t take them out of their parameters, their limitations, they’re excellent workers. And very much a part of our family.”

Charles missed work a couple days leading up to Thanksgiving break and passed away just a couple weeks later. His doctors at the hospital discovered that he had cancer, but by that point it was so aggressive that his chances weren’t good, said Brian Kitchens, the general manager of specialty dining who worked with Charles for nearly five years.

When the Progress director told Charles that he had cancer, he couldn’t think about anything but returning to his life at Vanderbilt, Kitchens said.

“He went to talk to him and told him, ‘You have cancer, you’re really sick,’” Kitchens said. “And he said ‘I don’t want cancer, I want to go back to work. When can I go back to work?’”

To Charles, working in Rand was not just a job — it was his whole life.

“He didn’t want to miss a day,” Kitchens added. “Didn’t matter if he was feeling good or not, he wanted to be here. This wasn’t just a job for him, it was a social interaction, it was something he loved to do.”

Charles loved sports, talking about Peyton Manning nonstop and always asking about the games that he had watched on TV the night before. A few years ago, he even got the chance to go to a Predators game with a few of his friends from Progress. He was outgoing, always high fiving students and coworkers and greeting anyone he recognized as he walked through the dining room each day.

“Charles was just a sweet soul,” Fields said. “I used to observe him speaking to the students all the time. Some would hear him and acknowledge him and some were too busy, and I get that, but it wouldn’t stop him. He would say ‘Hey, hey, hey.’ He really touched me.”

Every morning for a week at the Rand dining team’s group meeting, someone would stand in front of the group and say something about Charles –– an interaction with him that they wanted to share.

“He’s going to be really missed,” Kitchens said. “When we all found out [that Monday morning], I walked through here and half the staff was in tears. A positive soul was taken away from the environment, and that is something that is going to be missed.”