LaVerne Partlow’s smile lit up the Zoom screen from the first moment we started chatting.
Her warm presence was palpable despite the thousands of miles between us and I immediately was at ease, flowing into an easy rhythm as she started telling me her story.
As a public health educator for over 25 years, Partlow primarily has worked in North Carolina with minority populations.
During this time, her biggest takeaway has been that her most powerful tools for creating lasting impact in her work is building trust with community members through authentic relationships.
The challenge: Although Partlow is a North Carolina resident, her work often takes her into communities she doesn’t live in. She explains that even when she shares the same race as the people she serves, being an outsider and working for the county as a health education coordinator can make it difficult to build trust.
Her approach: Show up in the community, become involved, and let people see her authenticity.
“The best way to build trust was to spend time in the community,” she said. “If their church was having a health fair, or if they were having a community fair, I took the time to actually attend those events, to develop relationships with them so that they could see that, hey, I’m a genuine person.”
Once Partlow has started to build these community relationships, she says it is equally important to meet communities where they are. This means adapting when needed, which Partlow says comes with years of experience.
“Sometimes I’ve shown up to a church where they just want one component [of my health programs], or you think oh, I have an hour, but then you realize you really only have 15 minutes so you hit the highlights.”
It’s the prior immersion that allows Partlow to get an idea of the community needs and adjust accordingly. Even something like holding a community meeting at a time when the majority of the people can come and not making them come to you seems simple but can make a huge difference.
And when people see a passionate, engaged, and genuine leader like Partlow, the program flourishes, impacting people long after it has ended.
One of her recent programs ran for nine weeks, providing participants with practical health skills such as reading food labels, healthy meal recipes, and short exercise routines. At the end of the nine weeks, Partlow recalls fondly participants not only wished the program could extend longer, but they had talked about still getting together and doing some exercises.
Her community engagement leaving a mark that lingers long after her presence.
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This blog post was written by Josie Miller, a student at Tufts University passionate about community health, storytelling, and honoring diverse lived experiences. This piece explores how real stories don’t just inform, they create connections, expand perspectives, and help build stronger, more compassionate communities.
