Rose Haven: A Healing Center for Female Veterans in Eastern NC and Beyond

Founded in 2016, Pamlico Rose Institute is a nonprofit organization that promotes wellness in female veterans through various programs, activities and events. The Rose Haven Center of Healing (at the Institute) is located in Washington’s Historic District just three blocks from the Pamlico River. The Center also provides programming for other veterans and the larger community.

The Institute has started another initiative this past year. Executive Director Rob Sands says that after Covid, AmeriCorps and the Centers for Disease Control created a $400 million program to promote public health. Eighty national projects were initially funded for the program for the year 2022-23. Sands says three of those projects were started in North Carolina, and Washington was one of them.  The goal of the gardens is to help reduce food insecurity in certain at risk populations in the community. These populations include the visually impaired, college students, and veterans. 

“Our particular AmeriCorps project is called the PRIHealthCorps Platform. We have three wellness gardens here in town at the college, the remote Blind Center campus, and Rose Haven. The gardens we are building include vegetable beds, raised beds, and there’s a healing aspect to each garden. Other wellness concerns are met by different aspects of the garden. For instance, we have paths that people can walk and we have places to sit and relax.  We are building gardens that can fight food insecurity in the community, but that can also help you to continue to be well.”

There is a barn on-site at the Rose Haven Institute that was so dilapidated it was falling over. It is currently being renovated, and Sands says that the institute received a grant from USDA to renovate the barn, and it will be used for woodworking, visual arts, and yoga studio.

“It will also be a community center. It’s a wide open space, so it will host classes, activities, and community events.”

When asked how a female veteran would go about reaping the benefits of Rose Haven, Sands says just call or go online to learn more. “We’ll have retreats, classes, and workshops for female veterans. The intent of Rose Haven is to be a healing center. It’s a place where female veterans can come and stay for one, or three, or four days, and go through this wellness program that we have.  We’ll have classes, twelve step programs, and group sessions.

We will be a place where female veterans from eastern NC, from NC, from all over the US, to come and sample the healing services that we offer.”

Sands says the renovations on both the barn and house are complete and Pamlico Rose is now in the process of program development and fundraising through grants and donations to support the many different ways the Center's facilities can be used to support women Veterans starting later this summer. Sands also indicated that there will be events and activities in which the community is invited to attend and participate.

For more information, please visit the Pamlico Rose Institute website or email Rob Sands at Robert@PamlicoRose.org.