Fall 2025 DAISY Award®

Temo Guerrero, a 2025 graduate of the registered nursing program at Kankakee Community College, has been awarded The DAISY Award® for Extraordinary Nursing Students.

The annual award is part of The DAISY Foundation’s mission to express gratitude to nurses with programs that recognize them for the extraordinary, compassionate and skillful care they provide patients and families.

Guerrero, a Kankakee resident, was nominated two times during his final semester as a KCC student. He was chosen by a committee at KCC, and the award was presented on Dec. 11 at the Registered Nursing pinning ceremony. Guerrero received a certificate, a DAISY Award pin and a sculpture called A Healer’s Touch, hand-carved by artists of the Shona Tribe in Zimbabwe. Guerrero has accepted a position at Riverside Medical Center in the Intensive Care Unit.

Two ICU nurses at Riverside, Christina Tsiamas and Elizabeth Martinez, submitted nominations.

“Recently, after the unexpected loss of a patient during shift change, Temo walked past a man sitting alone in the hospital lobby,” Tsiamas said in her nomination. “He was crying while struggling to reach his family, getting voicemail after voicemail. Instead of going home after his 12-hour shift, Temo immediately recognized his pain and went to the emergency department nearby and brought him a box of tissues and offered him a hug. Temo then pulled up a chair and stayed with him for hours until his family arrived. During that time, the man shared stories about his loved one: her upcoming birthday, her favorite hobbies, their memories together, and the heartbreak of losing another family member just months earlier.

“Temo didn’t do this because it was his assignment,” Tsiamas said. “He did it because of who he is; someone who shows genuine compassion in moments when it is needed most.”

At Riverside, Martinez served as a preceptor–or mentor–to Guerrero.

“Temo was an amazing nursing student and did an amazing job with the patients within the ICU,” Martinez said in her nomination. “During his clinical rotation I asked if he would like to place an IV on one of my patients who needed more access. He was more than happy to help and gladly stepped away from (me) to perform the skill. What I did not expect, however, was his personal touch to care and the deep compassion he exemplified in the time he spent with my patient. My patient expressed repeatedly how much it meant to him that someone sat and talked with him.

“While Temo did an exceptional job of functioning in the critical care setting, the skill you cannot replicate is his human touch and compassion,” Martinez said. “Temo is an amazing student nurse and will without a doubt continue to impact many lives in the future.”

KCC’s two-year registered nursing program has a competitive entry process, and accepts new students each fall and spring semester. It incorporates classroom lectures, clinical experiences and lab demonstrations. The program is designed to prepare students for work in hospital departments, as well as in long-term care, home care, business and industry, outpatient clinics, public agencies, and physicians’ offices.

For information about entry requirements, consult with a KCC adviser or contact the program director, Jennifer Rogers at jrogers@kcc.edu or phone 815-802-8828.

About The DAISY Foundation

The DAISY Foundation is a not-for-profit organization, established in memory of J. Patrick Barnes, by members of his family. Patrick died at the age of 33 in late 1999 from complications of Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP), a little known but not uncommon auto-immune disease. (DAISY is an acronym for Diseases Attacking the Immune System.) The care Patrick and his family received from Nurses while he was ill inspired the creation of The DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nurses, an evidenced-based means of providing nurse recognition and thanking nurses for making a profound difference in the lives of their patients and patient families.

More information is available at DAISYfoundation.org.