Last month, The Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg’s founding president and CEO, Randall Russell, joined Equity Now’s host Carl Lavender on WTMP radio to share how the foundation became, and continues to be, a leading stakeholder in the fight for equity in our region.
For the foundation, creation of the Center for Health Equity offered a location where people from all backgrounds, sectors, and beliefs could gather to engage in this work.
With a 30-year career in social work before coming to the foundation, Russell shared that while dealing with racial equity often means leading while “making people uncomfortable,” it is vital to do it in a way that engages trust but is tenacious and relentless.
Lavender also asked about the foundation’s work during the COVID-19 pandemic, which continues to impact black and brown populations in numbers three times greater than those in white communities.
Russell shared foundation efforts with the Health Department and UNITE Pinellas to clarify rates of infection and establish policy change; on the ground disease mitigation including setting aside $3 million for nonprofit response, distributing masks, and contributing to the Tampa Bay Resiliency Fund; and supporting the work of One Community to support its #InThisTogether initiative for a suffering black business sector.
