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An effort to keep doors open

A fundraising walk to help the Willa Carson health center is Saturday.

By DEMORRIS A. LEE
Published April 17, 2007

CLEARWATER - It's been a struggle this past year for the Willa Carson Health Resource Center, the North Greenwood center that provides free medical care for the low-income and underprivileged.

The center has shut its doors two days a week because of a lack of funding. It's facing a nearly $30,000 deficit.

Plus, Carson - the one-woman wonder who could generate dollars for the center on charisma alone - died a year ago.

This weekend, the center's supporters hope they have found a way to address both issues: not only to raise much-needed money, but a way to honor Carson, a nurse who sacrificed much of her time and energy to the health of the city's poor.

On Saturday, the inaugural 5K Walk for Willa will start at 8 a.m. at the center, 1108 N Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. All proceeds will go to benefit the center's services.

"You can never make up for a loss like that," said Muhammad Abdur-Rahim, president of the center's board of directors. "What we are trying to do is to reconnect people back to that spirit even though we don't have her presence. We still have her spirit. When they connect to that, they are still supporting her. We want to remind people every year of that spirit."

In 2005, Carson was awarded the Governor's Points of Light Award and received the National Conference for Community and Justice's Silver Medallion Humanitarian Award. After her death, the city dubbed April 20 Willa Livingston Carson Day.

She died April 14, 2006, at the age of 80. Carson, a registered nurse, opened the center in 1995 in two apartments. She provided blood pressure checks, informational health sessions and care for the common cold.

In 2001, the center opened at its current location after Carson lobbied the state for funding. But a shortage of funds has prompted the center to close on Mondays and Fridays. Last year, it served about 4,000 patients at no cost. Because of being closed two additional days, those numbers are down from the usual 7,000 a year.

The center now has an annual budget of about $209,000, but still faces a deficit over the past two years of $30,000, Abdur-Rahim said.

"We are having to make that up one way or another," Abdur-Rahim said. "That's what makes this event more important, trying to make up that deficit in a fiscal year."

Cliff Smith, assistant director Pinellas County Department of Health and Human Services, said that the center is a valuable asset to the county's overall health program. He said he knew Carson personally and that she would "cajole everyone" to get them to become personally involved in the center's mission. It worked on him.

"They are serving an area of the county where there are a lot of low-income, uninsured patients," Smith said. "She got the county involved to come out and see patients and then she got us all personally involved, got us all believing it. It would be devastating if we lost them."

If you go

5K Walk for Willa

When: Saturday.Where: Walk begins and ends at the Willa Carson Health Resource Center at 1108 N Martin Luther King Jr. Ave.The schedule: Registration begins at 7 a.m. 5K walk starts at 8 a.m.; 1 Mile Fun Walk seniors starts at 8:15 a.m.; 1 Mile Fun Walk (youth, 12 and younger) starts at 9 a.m.For more information: Call (727) 467-9411 or go to www.carsonhrc.org.

[Last modified April 16, 2007, 22:34:24]