Serving our community means being embedded in trusted spaces where our neighbors gather. That’s why we were honored to join Called to Serve and the congregation of Zion Baptist Church for the groundbreaking ceremony of the Reverend Leon H. Sullivan Community Impact Center.
Located just a block away from TUH-Main Campus, in the former annex of Zion Baptist Church, the Impact Center will be home to a number of programs focused on serving the people of North Philadelphia. The entire ground floor will be clinic space for Temple’s Department of Family and Community Medicine, with 16 exam rooms designed specifically for Primary Care. Our Community Health Worker program will also have its headquarters in the building, as will the Lewis Katz School of Medicine’s Community Engagement Office.
“This is an ideal opportunity for Family Medicine to move into the community in partnership with our neighbors and to redesign Primary Care together,” says Nina O’Connor, MD, Chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine and Director of the Primary Care service line.
“Because the Impact Center is associated with Called to Serve, I think our neighbors are going to feel very comfortable receiving care there,” Dr. O’Connor explains. “And since so many of the other tenants in the building are also community-focused—not just our Temple services, but also an art gallery with youth programming, a coffee shop, and an e-sports program that provides mentoring—it’s going to be a place that people are going to want to spend time.”
“Throughout this process, we’ve been meeting with community leaders and members of Zion to find out what the community likes about our current practice, what they think could be improved, and how we can make it easier to access care,” Dr. O’Connor continues. “We’re going to take all of this feedback and use it to shape our program in this new space, which is crucial for building trust with our community.”
One Building, Countless Services
Having so many Temple programs in a central location will also allow us to better connect patients and community members with multiple essential services.
“People come into Family Medicine at almost every point in their lives,” Dr. O’Connor explains. “We see young people, we see older adults, we provide prenatal care, and we can also be a touchpoint to help people access what they need within the Temple system. If someone requires higher-acuity care, we can bring them right over to Main Campus. If they require Behavioral Health support, or need transportation, food, or health insurance, we can connect them to our Community Health Workers and Social Workers, who will be in the same building. The Impact Center will also have a Service Coordinator, who can link community members visiting the building’s other tenants to Temple services if they find out there’s a need.”
“Now that the Community Health Workers will have a space of our own, we’ll be much more visible within the community,” adds Patrice K. Armstead, Manager of Care Transitions, Social Work, who leads the Community Health Workers and Social Workers teams. “We’ll be able to continue building relationships and trust with our neighbors. I think it’s a win-win any way you look at it.”
We’ll also be able to collaborate with the Temple University and Lewis Katz School of Medicine services located in the Impact Center. “We’ll connect people to workforce redevelopment programs through the Lenfest Center for Community Workforce Partnerships, which will empower community members to learn skills, change jobs, and achieve success,” explains Steven R. Carson, MHA, BSN, RN, Senior Vice President of Population Health.
“Our medical school students will use the Impact Center space to host food pantries, health education programs, support groups, community closets, and more,” says Nicolle Strand, Director of the Center for Health Justice and Bioethics at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine. “Katz already has a lot of resources that are open to the public, but people might not know about them or want to go to the medical school to use them. By locating the Community Engagement Office in the Impact Center, we’ll be making those resources more accessible to our community members, so they can really take advantage of them.”
A Vision Fulfilled
At the groundbreaking ceremony, speakers echoed this idea of the Impact Center as bringing together, and making available, diverse resources and programs to better serve our North Philadelphia community.
“It was an incredibly moving event,” remembers Dr. O’Connor, who delivered remarks. “The granddaughter of Reverend Leon H. Sullivan, for whom the Impact Center is named, also spoke, which was very inspiring.”
“So much credit for this project has to go to the Reverend Mike Major, Called to Serve’s Board President and Founder,” Carson says. “He went to Zion Baptist Church as a young man, when Reverend Sullivan was the pastor, and he sat in the classrooms in the former annex. It was his vision and grit that brought everyone together, and that pulled this off. And when you look at everything we’re going to be doing in the Impact Center—from providing healthcare to education to workforce redevelopment to neighborhood outreach—it’s so in line with Reverend Sullivan, and Temple’s, mission of community empowerment.”
