Solidarity amid tragedy
Centennial Christian Church, a close community partner with WashU Medicine, plans to rebuild after a devastating tornado on May 16
Robert DoyleThe late Patricia Penelton (left) interviews a Fountain Park neighbor in 2024 at Centennial Christian Church as part of the Center for Community Health Partnership & Research ethnography work.
On May 16, members of WashU’s Center for Community Health Partnership & Research hosted a listening session with several unhoused individuals at Centennial Christian Church in Fountain Park. These sessions have become a mainstay of the yearslong partnership cultivated between Centennial and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis to help build a healthier, more vibrant community.
As the group of congregants, WashU Medicine staff and Fountain Park neighbors enjoyed sandwiches and fellowship, they discussed topics important to the north St. Louis neighborhood. What’s good about the area? What’s changed? What could Fountain Park look like in an ideal world? And what could those gathered here do to help that vision become a reality?
Although listening sessions like this one have become typical, this was no typical Friday.
Little did anyone know that within hours of that meeting, a portion of the church would be reduced to rubble from the EF-3 tornado that ripped through St. Louis.
Centennial lost more than brick and mortar that day. They lost Patricia Penelton, a woman who many say died at the church doing what she loved — serving others. In addition to all she gave to Centennial and the Fountain Park community, she was also a lead community partner to the Center for Community Health Partnership & Research. Sherrill Jackson, a founding member of the partnership, was also there that day. She was trapped for nearly an hour after falling from the main level of the church to the lower level and sustained minor injuries.
Robert Doyle
Sophia Kamanzi“Our hearts and thoughts are with everyone who was impacted by this tragedy,” said Angela L. Brown, MD, a professor of medicine in the Cardiovascular Division at WashU Medicine and co-director of the Center for Community Health Partnership & Research. “The partnership we have with Centennial has become more like a friendship over the last five years, and our friends and community are hurting and grieving. We are grieving alongside them, and when they rebuild, we will rebuild alongside them, as well.”
The Center for Community Health Partnership & Research is part of WashU’s Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences and the Institute for Public Health. Together, they aim to bring faculty, researchers and community members together to enhance research activities in the region with the goal of improving the health of all.
Restoring faith in medicine
For more than a century, Centennial has served the Fountain Park neighborhood, and for the past five years, WashU Medicine has played a part in their story. Like many other community partnerships, this one began out of a need. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Center for Community Health Partnership & Research worked with community leaders to help increase vaccine access and acceptance in low-resourced communities. The team collaborated with Centennial to listen, answer questions about the virus and vaccine, and provide vaccinations.
In all, WashU’s Our Community Our Health-St. Louis program provided nearly 800 flu and COVID-19 vaccines at Centennial to area residents. The team also worked with Centennial to conduct research sessions to understand vaccine distribution and access. Still used today, the process of listening and talking to neighbors helps to ensure future research is deeply rooted in the voices of the people it seeks to serve.
“The significance of this partnership cannot be overstated,” said William G. Powderly, MD, the J. William Campbell Professor of Medicine, Larry J. Shapiro Director of the Institute for Public Health, director of the Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences and co-director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at WashU Medicine. “Centennial was our lead partner for the vaccine delivery program to improve vaccine acceptance in high-risk ZIP codes. Our partnership has only grown since then.”
Listening and learning
The vaccine work was only one piece of Centennial’s partnership with WashU Medicine.
Listening sessions like the one on May 16 have helped the team tap into underlying challenges that north St. Louisans face, such as access to primary care. The sessions also serve another critical component of community engagement: They build trust between WashU Medicine and its surrounding neighborhoods. These efforts are critical to WashU Medicine’s work to unlock barriers to positive health outcomes for people of different social, racial and economic backgrounds.
“We know that so much of a person’s overall health is determined by social factors like where they eat, sleep, play and pray,” said Hilary Broughton of WashU Medicine, assistant director of the Center for Community Health Partnership & Research and lead for the Centennial partnership. “This research gives us a unique window into what really matters to individuals within an urban community. Over time, these efforts have not only helped us build a consistent, trusted relationship with our Fountain Park neighbors, they have also helped us develop a playbook for engaging with other communities.”
Like many other low-resourced neighborhoods, Fountain Park is considered a “food desert” because it lacks access to nutritious food options nearby. To address this gap, Penelton led efforts to offer a robust food ministry at Centennial. In addition to starting a drive-up food distribution site, she designed a plan so that Centennial could offer health screenings and community-facing classes on a variety of wellness topics. She worked with Broughton to find additional funding, and together, they helped the church secure a grant from the American Heart Association two years in a row. The program was so impactful that the association’s St. Louis chapter recognized Penelton with the 2024 Equity Champion award.
St. Louis Cardinals attendantWashU Medicine students have also collaborated with Centennial as a result of the partnership.
Medical student Sophia Kamanzi approached Broughton in 2024 to find real-world experience in community health. She joined the Center for Community Health Partnership & Research, helped Broughton with the Fountain Park partnership and enlisted several fellow medical students to help. On the center’s blog, Kamanzi shared her experience:
“My time working on this grant has been the most rewarding part of my medical student career so far,” she wrote. “The staff at the Center for Community Health Partnership & Research have taught me what it looks like to form meaningful and productive relationships with community. Their lessons are ones I will carry with me as I continue my medical career.”
Rebuilding a firm foundation
Amid the storm’s devastation, many people have wondered what will happen to Centennial.
On May 29, the church announced plans to rebuild a new campus that includes a multipurpose worship area, an affordable housing unit and a community health clinic.
Although the church and surrounding community face an uphill battle to rebuild, they will have a partner with them every step of the way in WashU.
“It’s not a choice for us,” Broughton said. “Our partnership with Centennial will continue. We will honor Pat and keep her vision alive. We’ve been in Fountain Park nearly every day since the tornado — visiting with neighbors and helping with cleanup and resource distribution. We celebrate together, we cry together. It’s how we operate. And we’re not going to let a tornado change that.”
