City of Rocky Mount Housing Authority Hosts Community Spring Garden Event and Resource Fair

Group photo at the Community Spring Garden Event and Resource Fair

Group photo at the Community Spring Garden Event and Resource Fair

The HUD Greensboro Field Office played a supportive role as the City of Rocky Mount Housing Authority (RMHA), The Down East Partnership for Children, The Conetoe Family Life Center (CFLC), and The Rocky Mount Opportunities Industrialization Center (RMOIC), a Federally Qualified Health Clinic, partnered on Friday, April 22nd to welcome Rocky Mount's public housing and Section 8 residents to the opening of the Weeks Armstrong Housing Community Garden.

The diverse group of partners and additional community collaborators came together to ensure RMHA community residents were knowledgeable of vital community services that continue to be despite noticeable relief from the pandemic that has had a grip on their neighborhoods and city for well over two years. RMOIC provides a permanent health clinic for the Weeks Armstrong Housing community. RMHA residents receive various health screenings (blood pressure, blood sugar, body mass index, HIV test), health education, exercise therapy, medical referrals, and COVID-19 tests and vaccinations.

During this event, twenty-five RMHA residents received clinical services that included blood pressure checks, HIV tests, and Covid-19 tests.

The Down East Partnership for Children is an area non-profit whose mission is to ensure that children become healthy, lifelong learners and provide vital resources to parents to achieve their objectives. They partnered with RMHA for several years around nutritional education and healthy living and provided RMHA's gardens with all plantings and soil preparation supplies through their grant efforts.

The Conetoe Family Life Center, led by Pastor and City Councilman Richard Joyner, is a faith-based non-profit located in Edgecombe County, NC. It operates under the mission of improving the health of the youth and community by increasing access to healthy foods, increasing physical activities, and providing access to health services. Their goal is to change the poverty cycle in families by improving the resources available to families, specifically children. Their motto

"Change the children by education and opportunity = Change for the family." CFLC has been partnering with RMHA's garden initiatives for several years and provides the soil preparation, garden layout, plantings, and use of equipment.

Other area collaborators and partners in attendance were Rocky Mount's Mayor Sandy Roberson and his Chief of Staff, Principal Kimberly Newkirk of the Baskerville Elementary School, Rocky Mount Police Chief Robert Hassell, and several members of his Community Engagement Team.

"I applaud the Rocky Mount Housing Association and the Rocky Mount Opportunities Industrialization Center for helping improve the safety and well-being of their residents by providing this Community Spring Garden event, wellness, and vaccine pop-up today," said HUD Greensboro Field Office Director Roosevelt A. Grant.

"It truly takes a whole village," says Kelvin Macklin, Executive Director of RMHA. "We delight in the fact that community organizations, some who we reach out to, others who reach out to us, extend their resources in a glad and friendly way, and at the end of the day, our residents are assured of a fair and equitable position in their homes and in their lives," said Macklin.

This year's event also provided RMHA residents with take-home plantings to start their own container gardens, nutrition education bags from DEPC, personal protective equipment bags from RMHA, food bags that contained canned goods, dry goods, and fresh produce from The Interfaith Food Shuttle, and packages of frozen chicken breasts from CFLC who also provided a hot meal for everyone by way of an on-site food truck.

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