HRHCare Co-Hosts Folk Arts Roundtable

HRHCare Community Health was pleased to co-host the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) 31st Annual New York State Folk Arts Roundtable along with other Peekskill community organizations on Thursday, May 12th. This Roundtable, a joint effort between NYSCA and the New York Folklore Society, brings together folklorists and scholars from different New York communities each year to discuss issues relevant to traditional arts and develop new program ideas and collaborative projects.

This year’s Roundtable participants visited the HRHCare Jeannette J. Phillips Health Center at Peekskill where the Reverend Jeannette J. Phillips herself, HRHCare Founder and Executive Vice President, presented a history of the Health Center. Nancy Jenks, FNP, Medical Site Director of Internal Medicine at the Health Center, followed with a presentation on the cultural traditions and health care needs of the ethnically diverse patient population at HRHCare. In addition to a history of Comité Latino and other community-based HRHCare outreach groups both in Peekskill and across the organization’s service area, there was a short talk given by a traditional healer from Mexico. Teaching the group about his own healing practices, he stressed the importance of the integration of traditional healing arts with western medicine.

“In art there is a healing of community,” said Reverend Phillips during her welcome speech to the Roundtable participants at the HRHCare Health Center. “By embracing the many traditions of our patients we are unified in our diversity. This is where we find our strength.”

The three-day 31st Annual Folk Arts Roundtable took place in Peekskill, NY, on May 11th, 12th and 13th. Other community organizations who participated in this year’s Roundtable included the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Community Boat Works of the Hudson Valley, Embark Peekskill, the Fern Tree, and the Bean Runner Café.