For one winner, the path to nursing started in elementary school.
"I was in sixth grade," says Sarah Bruno, BSN, RN, CPN.
Sarah's first patient was her terminally ill grandmother.
"I just grew up next door to her and started taking care of her," she says.
In fact, grandma preferred "Mom-mom's little nurse," as she was known, to professional nurses.
While also caring for a sister with autism, Sarah realized nursing was for her and pediatrics was her calling.
"I knew right away, I was like, I can't do adults," she says.
Kids, she says, are more fun.
"They could be the sickest of the sick and they still are like - Can you just play with me?" Sarah says.
But she also recognized their suffering.
"They just want you to walk in there and be, like, I hear you, and I'm going to try my best to make it better, whatever that looks like," she says.
The best friend who nominated Sarah noted that at St. Christopher's Hospital, she'd started a "trauma clothes closet" for kids headed to a foster home with no belongings of their own.
"I couldn't stand knowing they were going to a new stranger's house with nothing," she says.
She turned to co-workers and her big family to fill the closet.
"I said I need clothes, I need pajamas, I need whatever you have. Whatever you can buy, whatever you can donate," she says.
Independence Blue Cross says Sarah exemplifies the community spirit of the late marketing chief Paula Sunshine, for whom the Sunshine Awards are named.
"Nurses have such a far reach and are doing incredible things every day," says Koleen Cavanaugh, the senior vice-president and chief marketing officer of Independence Blue Cross. "We are always amazed by the caliber of candidates that we get."
Sarah plans to stay a bedside nurse.
"I became a nurse to take care of patients," she says firmly.
She is, however, taking a short break from Children's Hospital for her newborn daughter.
For her achievement, Sarah receives a $500 gift card, Phillies tickets, and a $2,500 donation to the nonprofit of her choice.