Mobile clinic a community collaboration
Oct. 4—HENDERSON — Shifting from educating the Tri-County about nutrition to becoming actively involved in COVID-19 vaccination and testing efforts was a natural transition for the Green Rural Redevelopment Organization.
The focus is still very much on food for GRRO, which brought urban and organic farming to the forefront for Henderson in 2012, but COVID-19 highlighted new ways for the group Ardis and Henry Crews founded to help the communities it serves.
GRRO partnered with several other organizations Saturday for a mobile vaccination clinic at Franklin Vance Warren Opportunity's Beckford Drive location. Another clinic is scheduled for 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 9 at Warren County High School.
"You'll notice on our trucks and our unit, you'll see food," Ardis Crews said. "Because what we discovered and declared is that food — plant-based — is and was the original medicine."
"When I came along, my grandmother and the old folks around would boil — go out in the woods and pick a leaf or something — and boil it to make medicine. So we figure that most of the things that plague our local area — which is diabetes, heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure — those things can be eradicated or helped by good diet."
The mobile "Wellness on Wheels" unit Ardis Crews alluded to was parked adjacent to Beckford Drive on Saturday in the Frankin Vance Warren Opportunity lot. She said the unit is one of only two in the state of its kind and arrived to the Piedmont via the Genesis Project Family Wellness Center in Charlotte.
GRRO partners with the Granville-Vance Health Department on mobile vaccination clinics. On Saturday, other groups involved in the clinic included N.C. Cooperative Extension, Franklin Vance Warren Opportunity, Delta Sigma Theta sorority (Oxford-Henderson alumnae chapter), Lake Gaston Area Chapter of the Links, Lift Every Voice Institute, Rho Beta Lambda chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, and the Zeta Alpha chapter of Omega Psi Phi fraternity.
Some of the groups provided gift cards from Amazon and Food Lion for those who got vaccinated.
"The purpose of today's event is to vaccinate the youth — 12 to 17," said Desiree Crawford, alumnae chapter president for Delta Sigma Theta of Oxford-Henderson, "We're also vaccinating adults — but there's such a gap in the youth — 12 to 17 — that are vaccinated currently in the United States and especially in our area in Vance County that we wanted to target the youth."
The first to arrive to the clinic Saturday afternoon was a father bringing his young son — between the age of an infant and toddler — by for a rapid COVID test, which came back negative. And within an hour, two more clinic visitors received their second vaccine doses.
The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, including the Pfizer booster shot, are available aboard the mobile unit.
GRRO has been involved in a number of nutrition-related initiatives over the years ranging from coaching the area on growing plants without soil, growing vegetables, beekeeping, and healthy recipes.
GRRO is still serving up food boxes, namely to senior citizens across Vance and Warren counties.
The driving factor for pitching in on COVID, Ardis Crew said, was to address vaccine equity for racial and ethnic minority groups.
"If we could take it on the road and go into the neighborhood where people are," Ardis Crews said, "then we can help them to become vaccinated and we can help them stop this pandemic."
