Health Corps News

Grand Opening!

NFHC Members Navvab and Gladness help celebrate the grand opening of the new Magnolia clinic.

Members and staff from all 4 sites
come together in Philadelphia.

Team Building

In 2006 the National Health Corps embarked on something that had never been done before in its 12 years of history. Members and program directors from the Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, and North Florida Health Corps met with staff from the Health Federation of Philadelphia to develop a National Health Corps project to be completed locally in each of the four Health Corps communities. North Florida Health Corps Members, Lowrie Ward and Amy Long were selected by the other North Florida Health Corps members to take part in the planning meetings which took place in Philadelphia in early December.

After three intense but productive days of team building activities, leadership development sessions and project planning meetings they emerged with a project and the beginning stages of a plan; It was decided that the National Project would take place during National AmeriCorps week with all four sites participating that same week. The project would focus around providing 24 hours (equal to one day) of service over the week. The perimeters of the local projects would be determined by each Corps based on community needs. The project was titled 24x4 indicating the 24 hours of service which would be performed across the country at the four different sites. Members left the meeting in Philadelphia with an infant project, lots of resources and the charge to carry on the legacy that had just begin.

Once back in Jacksonville members selected four areas to focus on; chronic diseases, violence prevention, homelessness, and HIV/AIDS. Members divided into four committees and have spent the last three months planning their projects, connecting with community partners, gathering the necessary resources to successfully complete the projects and doing all the other things it takes to put together a community event.

Set to take place May 14-18, this project is providing members invaluable experience in project planning and implementation, and it will be something that each member can look back on for years to come and feel good about, knowing that the reason they joined AmeriCorps was to get things done, and that’s exactly what they did, one day at a time.

For more coverage of Project 411, read our June NFHC Newsletter.

For more complete coverage of recent North Florida Health Corps News and Activities, take a look at our on-line newsletters below.