Tillery, NC is a small rural community in the northeastern part of the state. It consists primarily of African American families who remained after FDR’s “Forty Acres and a Mule” project failed in the 1940’s. Today’s citizens own and work their own lands, and over the decades led a long string of local self-improvement efforts, finally forming the “Concerned Citizens of Tillery” (CCT) in 1978 to protest the school board’s decision to close the town’s school. While unsuccessful at retaining their school, they opened a community center and organized groups for children and the elderly. With help from two Catholic nuns, they organized an “envisioning workshop” and identified health care as the community’s most pressing need. In 1984 they invited members of the NC Student Rural Health Coalition to hold a two week Summer Health Fair. In 1987 they sponsored monthly health screening clinics with the medical student chapters of Duke and East Carolina Universities. By 1990 they had formed CHAP (Community Health Advocacy Program) in which medical students taught grass-roots “health advocates” about heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, disease prevention and health promotion. In 1991 they refurbished the old “Curin’ House” and opened a health clinic consisting of 3 exam rooms, a reception room, and a laboratory, staffed by medical students. In 1992 they formed HELP (Halifax Environmental Loss Prevention) to address problems with disposal of offal, blood, and other debris from the massive chicken and hog processing plants in the county. These and many other successful projects earned them the national Healthier Communities Award in 1993.