A healthy city is a happy city Cedartown’s One Door Polk focused on community wellbeing and personalized care
A young man entered through the doors of One Door Polk in need of services from the Department of Juvenile Justice. What he received was an alarming diagnosis of previously undiscovered diabetes.
The outcome of his visit, though an unexpected one, is exactly why a facility like One Door Polk was e s t a bl i s hed in Cedartown. “What we had before the creation of One Door Polk was several great social service and medical organizations, but they were scattered around the city and the county. Folks in need of these services, many with transportation issues, had a difficult time navigating f rom one place to the next. Now, these critical organizations are all in the same building, a matter of a few yards from each other, easily accessible to those seeking care,” said Cedartown City Manager Bill Fann. “In addition, each agency housed in One Door Polk is familiar with the other organization’s services, that creates the environment for warm handoffs and personalized care. They aren’t getting confused or lost in transfers or paperwork.”
That is certainly true for the young man who visited the DJJ office in- side One Door Polk just a few weeks ago. Juvenile Probation/ Parole Specialist Courtney McGinnis said that the young man, who had recently turned his life around in a positive direction, came in and was acting strange. “He was sweating, shaking and I couldn’t really seem to get his attention,” McGinnis said. “I was worried about him. He told me that he didn’t know what was going on, but that he’d been feeling horrible.” McGinnis asked his mother if he had been to the doctor. The answer was no. Because they did not have insurance, seeking health care was an option that was seemingly unattainable.
That’s when McGinnis walked the young man and his mom down the hall and to into the waiti ng room of Primary Healthcare Center. Primary Healthcare is located in the One Door Polk complex.
They see everyone, regardless of insurance, and they have a sliding pay scale set up for those with severely limited financial resources. “They saw him immediately, tested him, and discovered he had diabetes. He is being treated now and is managing the disease. I hate t o t hink what would have happened to this young man had One Door Polk not have been here,” McGinnis said.
The DJJ and Primary Healthcare Centers are just two of the organizations that reside under the One Door Polk roof. Located in the center of town, it’s also home to Polk Family Connection, Highland Rivers Health Outpatient Services and Developmental Disabilities Division, Right from the Start Medical Assistance, Polk County Foster Parents Association, CHINS (Children in Need of Services), Court Appointed Special Advocates ( CASA), the Area Agency on Aging, Tallatoona CAP and an administrative office for Our House, Polk County’s Battered and Abused Womens Shelter. All of this in a downtown building that could have been left vacant – but vacancy wasn’t an option.
One Door Polk is housed in the former Polk Medical Center hospital building. Polk Medical Center relocated to a newly constructed facility in November of 2014. Cedartown City officials were proactive in finding new tenants for the building — having an empty and abandoned building in the heart of downtown was not acceptable.
In December 2013, well before the building was vacated by the hospital, the city commission voted to approve a conditional hospital reuse plan and become owners of the building and property. “The original request of the City Commission was that this facility not be left vacant or be torn down, leaving a hole in the economic center of the City. This project fulfills that request in a magnificent fashion that has never been done before,” explained Fann. “Tenants lease space in the building and that covers the monthly costs associated with the building.” The City has a specially assigned employee that oversees daily maintenance as well.
One Door Polk continues to grab the attention of local and state leaders. Annaka Woodruff, program director with the Georgia Department of Community Affairs, Appalachian Regional Commission, and Brittany Pittman, program manager for the Appalachian Regional Commission, recently visited the City of Cedartown's One Door Polk facility.
Patrick Vickers, Georgia Department of Community Affairs Northwest Georgia Community Services Representative, was in attendance as well. The Northwest Georgia Regional Commission was represented by Brittney Hickom and Delmos Stone.
"One Door Polk is a great example of the collaboration of federal, state, and local partners to build community capacity and a better quality of life for the citizens of Polk County," said Pittman. "The Appalachian Regional Commission remains committed to investing in communities to expand access to health care."
One Door Polk, located at 424 North Main Street, continues to build relationships in the community. On March 31, a community block party was hosted in the facility’s parking lot. The event featured literacy activities, face painting and selfie stations, bean bag toss, prizes and of course, information relating to the services offered by One Door Polk.
“This is a network of high quality, easily accessible treatment, education and support services. Though well-planned, this was a leap of faith undertaking and has been a true team effort since the beginning. We hope that other cities and counties will take into consideration what a difference that easily accessible, easily navigatable social service offerings can make in their community’s overall health and happiness,” Fann said.
One Door Polk network partners are seeking to bring awareness to the services they offer and hope to spread the message in the local community and also the region. Civic c l ubs, c hurch groups and other community service organizations wishing to know more about One Door Polk can request a special presentation by contacting Sandy Matheson at mathesons@primaryhealthcarecenter.org or Rhonda Heuer at rhonda@polkcouncil.com
CAVE SPRING — After years of fund raising and efforts to preserve a piece of the past, Fairview School, a school building and small campus that once was the only place to educate African American children in the area, has been listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Joyce Perdue- Smith, CEO of the Fairview-E.S. Brown Heritage Corporation was ecstatic when she got the news and said it came after at least three years of hard work and lobbying.
"Historic preservation, oh my gosh, is an animal all to itself," PerdueSmith said.
The nomination for Register status was also supported by the city of Rome.
Just one building remains on the original campus, a circa-1945 first grade classroom building sits on an approximately 3.5-acre campus just east of downtown Cave Spring. The site also includes the remnants of other buildings originally constructed in the mid-1920s.
The initial buildings were constructed in the mid 1920s with the assistance of the Rosenwald Fund, a philanthropic organization founded by Julius Rosenwald and Booker T. Washington. Three additional buildings were constructed on the campus in the 1940s.
Fairview School was listed in the National Register of Historic Places as significant in the areas of ethnic heritage (African American) and education, as a rare example of an entire African American school campus constructed before the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. It is the only remaining property of this type surviving in Cave Spring. The property was deeded t o t he Floyd County Board of Education by local residents.
According to the Historic Preservation Division, the school also has an association with the prominent Chubb family of Cave Spring. The Chubb family is significant because of their rarity and self-sufficiency as a free black family in Georgia prior to the Civil War. The Fairview School expanded to accommodate a growing student body, and three additional buildings were constructed on the campus in the 1940s. Of these, only the first- grade classroom building exists today; however, the foundations and chimney remnants of the three other classroom buildings remain, and their sites have produced material significant to understanding
In a statement released Thursday, Craig Bell, a Georgia Power spokesman, advised Rome News-Tribune of the power utility’s plan to close its remaining 27 business offices in the state before year’s end, including the long- standing business office in Rome at 800 Broad St. The following is the statement in its entirety:
Georgia Power is continuing to evolve our the development and use of t he property as a whole.
Additionally, the property is significant for historic archaeology due to the property's ability to reveal information significant about the past. Artifacts recovered from the property include historic ink and medicine bottles, students' supplies, and building materials that can inform archaeologists about the buildings and the daily lives of the student body.
The National Register of Historic Places is the country's official list of historic buildings, structures, sites, objects, and districts worthy of preservation. The National Register provides formal recognition of a property's architectural, historical, or archaeological significance. It also identifies historic properties for planning purposes, and insures that these properties will be considered in the planning of state or federally assisted projects. National Register listing encourages preservation of historic properties through public awareness, federal and state tax incentives, and grants. Listing in the National Register does not place obligations or restrictions on the use, treatment, transfer, or disposition of private property.
Perdue-Smith said people have been asking her for several years when the group was going to do something with the building and her response was always that they couldn't do much of anything until the building was listed on the Register.
She said Fairview's listing on the Register opens the door for all kinds of potential grant funding.
"What we need is what they call brick and mortar grants to fix the building," Perdue-Smith said. "There are a lot of large foundations that want to give but they want you to have that National Register listing before they do it."
She said the goal is to restore the one building as closely as possible to its original look. She estimates that work at the Cave Spring site will cost at least $200,000.
Perdue-Smith also said the Georgia Department of Tourism has come on board as a partner to help promote the school, for both tourism and educational purposes.
The Fairview School joins two dozen other sites in Cave Spring that are listed on the Register. Sandra Lindsey, director of the Cave Spring Downtown Development said once the restoration work on the Fairview School is completed it would be yet another major plus for tourism in Cave Spring. business in response to our customers’ changing needs, while ensuring world-class service at the lowest possible prices. Over the past decade, payment transactions have shifted from traditional business offices and mail to electronic payments (online, mobile and auto-draft) and authorized payment locations, which account for
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