The
National Black Nurses Association is moving from Silver Spring to Capitol Hill, where it will locate its offices and conference rooms, as well as a small gallery open to the public.
“We want to be in D.C. because of our health policy agenda,” says NBNA’s president and CEO, Deidre Walton, JD, MSN, RN-PHN. Being on the Hill “gives us location and proximity” to where relevant bills are drafted and laws made, she adds.
With 150,000 members across the U.S. and beyond its borders, NBNA is a non-profit organization. Its mission is to support research, education and scholarship opportunities for nursing students, licensed and registered nurses and retired nurses; the organization also works within communities to offer health screenings and fairs. It was founded in 1971 in Ohio and has 90 chapters in 35 states, as well as the Eastern Caribbean and Africa.
Now serving in her fourth and final year as president, Walton says a search committee was created to scope out potential new locations for the organization’s headquarters. The property at 251 8th Street NE had been a private home before NBNA acquired it, and both its location and recently renovated status appealed to NBNA’s management.
Prior to its status as a private home, the property had been abandoned and neglected for years. Before that, it had been a corner market.
Offices are to be located upstairs, while conference rooms and workstations will occupy the basement level, she says.
An open-to-the-public gallery will be featured on the first floor, Walton says. On display will be artifacts describing the legacy and history of black nurses in America and elsewhere and information about the contributions to healthcare and research of the group’s lifetime members and past presidents.
“We seek to be good neighbors,” Walton adds, noting that an official ribbon-cutting is likely to take place in early February.