Community partnerships can form through planning, but sometimes the best associations start by chance. Over two years ago, Amanda Perry, assistant deputy director at Perry Wellness Center, began attending St. Johns Anglican Church in Americus. Before long, Amanda invited her parents, Stuart and Pam Perry, to accompany her to church. As we all know, Stuart is the founder and CEO of Perry Wellness Center.
That invitation led to an ongoing partnership between St. Johns and Perry Wellness Center. The Christmas after the Perrys first attended church together, church leadership asked Amanda to talk to her dad about the needs of peers, children, and grandchildren for the holiday season. A few days before Christmas, members of the church arrived at the center, delivering a full sleigh of gifts for sharing.
That gesture of Christmas giving began a partnership of giving between the church and the recovery center. In a series of discussions and site visits, Stuart met with church leaders to formulate plans for a team project on the five-acre church grounds. Soon the spacious earth between a series of walking trails, was being plotted for planting in raised beds – much like the ones already in place on the grounds of the center.
The increased chores of watering maintenance during last summer’s heat wave led to shared plant survival duties among church people and center peers. The first harvests of the vegetables raised on the St. Johns church grounds have since been gathered and delivered to Rudy’s Happy Patch Market on PWC campus.
“We do appreciate this partnership with a local church,” Stuart says. “I know most of their members, and to meet at church with them is a blessing. They have been the best of local mentors for our peers.”
As bed construction and planting have grown for the gardening project, so have plans for future association between the church and center. One possible next project: a “spirituality visitation” by members and leadership of St. Johns. In the meantime, both St. Johns and PWC are benefiting from the current effort.
Stuart notes, “We would like to think of our plantings as a different type of ‘curb appeal’ for the church. Already we are taking a van full of peers to enjoy the walking trails with church members. It is good for all of us. I appreciate their continuing invitations for partnership.”
In the photo above, Judge George Peagler, left, along with peer Marcus Mitchell, center, and Stuart Perry, right, appreciate the results of a first broccoli harvest.