Tucked away off the main throughfare in Washington, North Carolina, The Pamlico Rose Institute, with the assistance of USDA Rural Development, is helping female Veterans by promoting wellness and building resilience through their various programs, activities and events.

With $113 thousand in Community Facilities Grants, RD assisted PRI to renovate The Barn. 

According to the PRI website, The Barn is a 63-year-old pole structure and “looks older than it has a right to.”

The renovated structure will be used as a community event center for wellness and resilience-building programs for at-risk female veterans, according to an RD press release from June 2021.

Now that The Barn is complete, it is providing space to house community events and workshops including woodworking, visual arts, crafts and yoga classes.

“Our healing programs do not meet their full potential without The Barn,” said Executive Director of PRI Robert Sands. “The Barn opens up the number of Veterans we can serve and expands the types of art media we can provide for women Veterans and the community.”

With classes in The Barn involving woodworking, photography, pottery, cutting stain-glass and painting, Sands is working with Veterans to develop new skills with their hands to advance activity memory, which will move their minds away from the internal struggles holding them back.

Some of the classes being offered begin inside The Barn and transition outside as they progress.

In the Spring, PRI will offer classes in vegetable and herb gardening. These classes provide Veterans with food and nutrition education and harvested crops will be donated to combat local food insecurity.

According to Air Force Veteran and PRI Volunteer Gwendolen Read, the classes she has taken and work she has done to improve the facility has woken a part of herself, and she is now beginning to explore new opportunities for herself.

She just completed a substitute teaching class. Read never thought she had the ability to take on the challenge of that type of course.

Read credits her time at PRI with fellow female veterans, sharing their unique experiences and learning new skills to overcome some of her internal barriers. 

“This place has given me courage and sense of accomplishment,” said Read. “When you suffer from something like PTSD you can’t do that. I have grown so much from my time being here. This has been an amazing journey for me.”

Sands says his vision is to create a space where female Veterans can develop their skills in art and provide a space where it can be shared with the other Vets and the community. As they improve with their skills PRI will continue to be place where they can continue to come and “keep their journey going.”

“We want to provide a platform for the artist that they probably would not have been able to do on their own,” said Sands.

The assistance USDA gave to PRI is providing a great step in helping female Veterans, from across North Carolina, develop skills to improve their lives.

“When you walk around here you see the impact our partnership is making,” said Sands. “USDA is an amazing organization.”

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