Transcript: Hope and health in Kerrville, Texas
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This is The Nation's Health podcast. In 2022, the American Public Health Association is celebrating its 150th anniversary. The association is taking time throughout the year to reflect on its mission and priorities. As part of that effort, members of APHA staff have taken to the mic to gain insight from public health workers who are contributing to the goal of creating the healthiest nation.
Hello, my name is Brittany Perrotte. I’m the project director of the Healthiest Cities & Counties Challenge at APHA. The Healthiest Cities & Counties Challenge is a two-year initiative funded by the Aetna Foundation supporting 20 communities across the U.S. in their work to increase health equity and decrease disparities in chronic disease. To do this, the twenty communities are improving access to food and health services by changing local systems through multi-sector collaboration and community-led solutions.
I’m joined today by Rev. Allen Noah of Kerrville, Texas, who, in addition to being a local faith leader, serves as the executive director of Kerrville’s Glory Community Garden, and as a leading member of the Hope4Health community collaborative. Hope4Health brings together local service providers and community members who share a united focus on reconciliation and repairing a century of structural racism and isolation within Kerrville’s predominantly African American and Hispanic Doyle neighborhood.
Rev. Noah, I’m so happy to have this conversation with you today. I’ve had the pleasure of working with you and your team since the summer of 2020, and what I’ve come to realize is that Doyle is a really special place that is full of heart. Can you tell me about the neighborhood and what your coalition hopes to accomplish for the individuals who make up this community?
My involvement with the neighborhood, like many neighborhoods in many cities across our country, when people who have been marginalized and ostracized and kind of left out of the mainstream, they are not active participants in the policy making and the city processes and the day-to-day runnings of our communities. So they are people who without voice and when I started working in the garden, my vision was to create a space where people could come together and have the conversations about life and be a part of the broader conversation about community.
So it was that space where we invited the mayor and city councilmen and the police chief and fire chiefs and other community leaders and we opened the conversation and made them aware of the issues that were plaguing our people and had been plaguing our people for centuries and how we collectively as a community could begin to address some of these issues.
So now that we are at this place with support from the Healthiest Cities & Counties Challenge of the food pantry and dental clinic, is providing services to our community who otherwise would have not been receiving this care.
The three-pronged approach that you're taking through access to food, access to primary care and access to oral health care, is a really integral part of addressing chronic disease disparities in the Doyle neighborhood and tackling it from those different angles. So, I'm really glad that you highlighted all of those parts of your work.
I guess it's kind of interesting, because in a country as rich as the U.S., you don’t think about communities who are losing population because of current diseases. You don’t think about communities where children are hungry just because they don't have access to healthy vegetables. We don't think about communities that have to walk to the local grocery store in order to purchase food.
So initially, our focus was on adolescent obesity. But after we started the garden and opened the conversations and really began to know how community, these three areas of concern became prominent. The biggest thing that makes me happy about this situation is the number of people who came to the table, but were open to having the conversation and to working collectively as a broader community to address these concerns.
You just spoke to a critical component of your work, which is bringing people together. I'd really love it if you could tell me about what has brought you success in creating a shared vision and cultivating relationships with your partners to change the systems and policies that are creating food and health access barriers for Doyle residents? And how do you think others could follow along in that example?
I think one of the first things that occurred in that community was that at the time that I arrived in Kerrville, our then-elected mayor had a true concern about working with the community. But because there was such a huge lack of trust, there was no voice in the community that he could communicate with, who was speaking on behalf of the people. So, I kind of fell into that role.
Since I didn't have any history with the community, there were a lot of things that did not impede my conversations about what would be how we can move forward for the greater good. So, that eliminated any personal gain or greed or any of those things from my side of the house. My concern was that as a pastor in this community, we had cast a vision to create a space and an environment where people can have the conversations and we could learn and we were all better together as a community than we are apart.
And so our mayor was intentional. Our city council was intentional. Our city manager was intentional. And they were willing to hear us. Once we got the garden started, the community itself gathered around that. So, we started doing something for ourselves. We took some responsibility for ourselves. So, I think that's going to be the key to planning this vision with other communities. Bring people to that place where they're willing to take responsibility for their own future.
And then what the policymakers and the leaders do is that they bring resources to the table that the community lacks.
So, can you tell me a little bit about how the Hope4Health coalition is meeting people where they are to make sure that every community member is having their health needs met? How are you going about connecting with members of the community, who may not already be engaging with these existing services?
Our success in engaging the isolated residents, we went door to door in the community. We established relationships with apartment complexes and we obtained permission to set up tips and parking lots in our playground, and interact with the people in their environment. We wanted to connect the service community with those persons that needed those services. By going to where the people were or the people are, it was a more engaging and relaxing and open environment.
In December, we saw the number of new food pantry users doubled, as compared where they were in October and November. So, the food pantry has been huge in terms of meeting that need in our community. We have a young lady on staff who brought the bilingual element to the table and through her efforts, we were able to help people who were undocumented who never would have come out for services. So, I guess the human element has to be present. It just has to be present and we have to see people in our relationship as individuals.
You know, we have to engage our humanity and once we do that, then we give people permission to engage in the process. Some of the stigmas, some of the apprehension, some of the fears are removed and they come to this place where they have come to trust the staff, trust the process and they’ve come to trust the program.
The human element has to be present. Those are very powerful words and I think what you're really providing through that is all in the name of your coalition. You are giving people Hope4Health. Thank you again for sharing with me today and for all that you are doing for the Kerrville community, and Doyle in particular.
Thank you, Brittany. It was my pleasure.
And with that, we thank them for their conversation. For more information about how APHA is celebrating its 150th anniversary, visit www.apha.org. This has been The Nation's Health podcast. For more coverage of all things public health, visit www.thenationshealth.org
