Good morning, Miss Ophelia.

Good morning.

Thank you for joining me today.

Thank you for the invite. Yeah.

So, can you tell me a little bit about yourself?

Well, my name is Ophelia Carr. I belong to the Canaan Baptist Church right here in the city, right up the street.

Okay.

11Th and chambers. I've been with them since December. It's my new church. I'm part of the General Baptist State convention. Convention. Convention of Wisconsin, Incorporated. I am also part of the hope ministry that's part of the National Baptist Convention of USA, Incorporated. We do a lot of things with that, with regarding to health and opportunities.

And what else do I do? I work. I'm a full time. I'm a grandma, I'm a mom, I'm a wife. Okay. Quite a bit of things that I do in a day.

All right. So are you from Milwaukee?

Born in Chicago, raised here.

Okay. Raised in what side of town?

Chicago?

No, in Milwaukee.

Northside.

North side.

Always have been. Yep.

Okay.

See how northwest. I'll put it that way. Where I was raised there because I was born in Chicago and we moved here, as my dad said, we transplanted here. And I went to grade school, I went to middle school, and I went to high school in Union Grove, Wisconsin.

Okay. What was growing up like?

It was fun. I had two sisters, mom and dad, and we had a good time. My dad made sure that we learned about how to take care of yourself, don't depend on somebody else because that person may not be there. So he taught us, he trained, raised us like boys, so we know how to mow grass, cut trees. We know how to do all the good stuff as a young man because he didn't have any sons. So we learned all the good stuff. And I have to say, my dad made sure that we learned everything so we can be self sufficient.

What about health? Did your dad teach you anything around health?

Well, my mom did that part. Okay, so you know how to be healthy. Make sure you get to the doctor, the dentist, making sure that you always know what your health numbers are. Because if you don't know how, you can tell somebody else, and without knowing your own health history, how can you tell your children and grandchildren what happened, but also what happened in the past with grandma, great grandma? So you can know how to focus the rest of your life, because you just don't know what can happen and who will come along with those grandchildren. You just have to know.

You said that you are really active in your church community, faith based communities, specifically regarding health. Tell me a little bit what that looks like.

Well, people are quiet. I'll use african American because that's what I am. And we are very, very particular who we talk to and what we say and how, who we say it to. So when being part of different workshops as part of the african american community and from the community partnerships that I'm part of is that you have to be particular how you bring the program, but also particularly who you put in the program. Because if you put somebody who don't look like me, sound like me and lived in my shoes, I'm going to give you basic information. But if you look like me and you like, yeah, I seen you. I know you. You know the struggle.

I can talk to you and I'll tell you everything you need to know and even more than you ever wanted to know. So that makes it interesting to be able to be part of the community, but also to be able to help them and bring resources that they say that's in the community but we never see. So that's my thing with being part of healthcare and being part of the community health ambassador, to make sure that all those resources that's laying out there for our caucasian and our other brothers and sisters out there is brought back to our community so they can be able to be self sufficient but also to live a little longer. Past 35.

Yeah. What are some, like, practical things that you do in those communities to help bring those resources back?

Well, I'm currently working with the Living well with chronic health disease, part of the Milwaukee County Health, Milwaukee County Health department of aging in the living will, Wisconsin. It's called WiHa Wisconsin Health and aging, Wisconsin Health Aging Institute. And so we have a program, a workshop that we're working with, piloted with several churches here in the city. And it brings, talking about chronic health conditions. So it's just like a conversation like we having today. We sit and talk evidence based program, but it's a conversation, you talk about different health concerns such as diet, diabetes, everything you can think of and how you can manage it better. So being able to bring this information to the community in a small group and have them talk, be like, man, just a little bitty, something small that you can hear the conversation. They'll take it back and tell somebody else.

And next thing you know, we got another workshop coming up because somebody else want to hear. What did you tell them and how did you do it and how, why did you read that story to them and how come they feel so good? And that makes me feel so good because I've been in health care for over 30 years. And I know it's information that we're missing.

What did you do in healthcare?