Establishing roots Community health worker Kaye Barnes sports a purple SIU Medicine T-shirt to complement her green thumb as she works in Springfield’s community gardens. A native of the city’s north side, she feels at home both tilling the soil or working in the trenches for her clients in the school of medicine’s Office of Community Care (OCC). Barnes is a diabetes lifestyle educator, a nationally certified nutrition coach and has a master’s degree in library science. In the summer of 2023, she created and launched Operation Taproot, a new program she hopes will grow and flourish across