Today, we’d like to introduce you to Kelita Gardner. Kelita was introduced to us by the brilliant and talented Taimere Wood.
Hi Kelita, we’re so thrilled to have you sharing your story with us today. Maybe we can kick things off by having you introduce yourself to our readers? We’d love to have you go into your story and how you got to where you are today.
Early in the pandemic, our church was approached to work with other churches serving black residents to host a couple vaccination clinics for the underserved black population. We partnered with four other churches and eventually were invited to participate in a CDC grant to explore & put together a plan to address health inequities that affected blacks in Orange County.
Once we won the grant, we realized that we needed a logo and website to reach those we are serving and help us establish name/brand recognition in our communities. Tamiere was recommended to us by one of the members in our collective. We put out an RFP and her customer service, quality and rapport stood out head and shoulders above the competition.
She quickly began working with us, answered every question we had and provided guidance where we struggled in this new venture.
We’ve heard great things about your organization. For our readers who might not be as familiar, can you please tell them about the organization?
The HEAAL collective is comprised of 5 churches two non-profit organizations and two dedicated individual community members in Orange County, California. We came together under the Health Equity in OC initiative which is the result of a CDC grant to improve the health equity in underserved, at risk populations in Orange County. HEAAL is focused on unearthing the inequities that affect black people who live, work, and/or worship in Orange County. Our goal is to survey 5% of the black population to understand the key health issues in the community. This will be the first survey of its kind in Orange County’s history. Unfortunately, we know that black folks are resistant to survey unless they are being asked by a trusted voice. We believe that the church is one of the few remaining trusted voices that can gather empirical data from our peers. This grass roots effort will help us to develop an action plan identifying the social determinants of health impactors and share with local city, county and state officials. This is a new space for us as churches, but we are most proud of the interest expressed by residents and congregants that are willing to participate in this unprecedented survey. This work will not only help the current residents but those in the future as well which we believe is a prosperous legacy to leave.
Taimere Wood and Back Office Support Solutions have been great to us and I know you’ve got a great relationship with them as well. Maybe you can tell our audience a bit about Taimere Wood and Back Office Support Solutions and your experience with them.
Taimere believed in our project from the start which helped us to brainstorm the look and feel of our logo as well as our website. She offered recommendations on the best graphics that would capture the sentiment of our project as well. We were provided drafts and she has been timely with updates and modifications that we’ve requested.
We didn’t know which platform nor the key pages we should have on our website. Taimere provided us with options and her personal recommendations in order for our collective to choose. Her support helped us to know that we are in the hands of a professional who has our best interest at heart.
One day, I asked about minor updates to the website. She not only provided them, but also offered to provide me with a tutorial to empower me to make them in the future if I desired. The session was via Zoom along with notes and a recording after the session.
Website: www.heaaloc.org
Image Credits
I, Kelita Gardner certify that I have the rights and permissions to these images The first is our flyer encouraging folks to take the survey. Second is a candid shot of a health fair that we hosted Third is the graduation of the HEAAL collective members at the Association of Black Cardiologists’ Community Health Advocate Training. Fourth photo is another candid shot of a health fair taken at Second Baptist Church. Fifth photo is of the HEAAL members at the Equity in OC Community Health Improvement Leadership Academy
