What's New?

Sarah Landry, Mercy Housing and Human Resources director, stands with Bob Reeder, Rural LISC  program director, and Mercy staff at the grand opening of a recently completed community health clinic.

In another grand opening, practicing what they preach, Rural LISC Partner CDC Mercy Housing and Human Resources moved into its new office in a renovated building in Gulfport, Miss., the entire renovation completed under the direction of an architect to strictly green specifications.  The new space provides the local community with a model for green architecture and sustainable living— Sarah Landry, Mercy’s director, calls it an “oasis in the concrete jungle”.    Among its unusual features are an outdoor organic herb and vegetable garden watered by a multi-barrel, rainwater catchment system, and a growing fruit orchard contained by a unique, state-of-the-art trellis against the sunny side of the building.  

Barrels catch rainwater from the roof.	An innovative post-and-wire trellis system holds growing fruit trees against the sunny side of the building.

With organic produce from the gardens, the CDC will be offering much needed healthy cooking classes in the facility’s renovated kitchen, to help educate area residents in healthy lifestyles.  Mississippi currently suffers one of the highest obesity rates in the nation.