Health Update: Health Update: West Augustine Health and Wellness Center opens its doors – What Experts Say– What Experts Say.
New Health and Wellness Center opens in West Augustine
The long-awaited West Augustine Health and Wellness Center opened Jan. 23, providing a full spectrum of health care to the area’s most vulnerable.
(This article was revised to add video.)
West Augustine celebrated the opening of the West Augustine Health and Wellness Center on Friday, Jan. 23.
Located on 1.23 acres on West King Street, the 14,000-square-foot center includes 2,000 square feet of outdoor patio space and on-site parking. The area’s first medical facility will offer preventive care, fitness resources, mental health services and wraparound support to the residents of West Augustine.
Spearheaded by Greg White, founder and president of the West Augustine Historical Community Development Corp., the center will provide a comprehensive continuum of health care for West Augustine’s most vulnerable residents, regardless of their ability to pay. The West Augustine Health and Wellness Center will also serve as a resource center to assist community members with health and financial education.
In an earlier interview, White told the St. Augustine Record that the West Augustine community suffers disproportionately from health issues such as infant mortality, diabetes, strokes, heart attacks and mental and behavioral health relative to countywide averages. The center will provide immediate healthcare to offset these and other medical needs for the local residents.
Surrounded by people who assisted with leveraging “$8 million from nothing,” White thanked those who shaped the edifice into a dream, including Mark Bailey, Inez McDonald, St. Johns County Commissioner Sarah Arnold, County Administrator Joy Andrews, Mike Davis, Philip McDaniel, Robert Nimmons, Dwala Willis and more.
Bailey described West Augustine as forgotten in the county, a “shocking and sad” statistic from a county that has highest average annual income in Florida.
“This community was in desperate need of resources that are readily available to a vast majority of our county residents,” he told the St. Augustine Record following the ceremony. “To be here today, celebrating a facility that brings organizations embedded in this community is surreal. The impact will be immeasurable for generations.”
Arnold lauded the community of residents and coalition of partners that included the West Augustine CRA, the West Augustine Historical Community Development Corp., the City of St. Augustine and the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office.
“The residents and their leadership have refused to accept the enormous inadequacies and disproportionate access to health care in an area that is located within the healthiest county in the state,” she said during the ceremony. “The long-lasting effects of this facility and its professional health care providers on the wellness of this entire community will be tremendous.”
“For a long time, West Augustine residents have been clear about what has been missing, and just as clear about what this community deserves,” St. Johns County Commission Chair Clay Murphy said. “This Health and Wellness Center is a direct response to that truth.”
“When a community invests in wellness, it invests in the future,” said Nimmons, chair of the West Augustine Community Redevelopment Agency Steering Committee. “Our children, our seniors, our families, deserve a place to support not only where they live, but how they live.”
County officials emphasized that the project was driven by community leadership and sustained collaboration among public and private partners.
“This clinic represents hope,” said Andrews. “It represents action. It represents a community refusing to accept high infant mortality, limited access to care, or the absence of wraparound wellness services as ‘just the way things are,’”
The West Augustine Health & Wellness Center was officially dubbed the Greg and Lydia White Health and Wellness Center to honor the White’s advocacy and leadership for the West Augustine community.
Strategic funding partners, legacy benefactors and other project champions for the West Augustine Health & Wellness Center included House Representative Cyndi Stevenson, former Florida House Speaker Paul Renner, The Bailey Group, The Mayernick Group, St. Johns County, the City of St. Augustine, Wells Fargo, EPIC Behavioral Healthcare, Wildflower Clinic, YMCA, Youth Crisis Center, UF Health St. Johns, Philip McDaniel, Sen. Travis Hutson, Rachael Miller, Les Thomas Architect, A.D. Davis Construction, and Gulfstream Engineering.
Guest speakers included Bailey, president of The Bailey Group, who served as the master of ceremonies. Bishop Walter Brown Jr. gave the prayer benediction, and speakers included Murphy, Arnold, Andrews, Sheriff Robert Hardwick, St. Augustine Mayor Nancy Sikes-Kline, Commissioner Cynthia Garris, former County Commissioner Henry Dean, City Commissioner Cynthia Garris, project consultant Gerald Chester, Mike Davis of A.D. Davis Construction, Nimmons, Dwala Willis of the West Augustine CDC and Pastor Raleigh Burney, who gave the closing prayer benediction.