PUBLIC HOUSING AUTHORITY PUTS ON FESTIVAL FOR KIDS.
There is an eyesore at 513 S. Maryland—an old metal box that once contained the wiring for hundreds of telephones in the area. Though landlines are becoming a thing of the past, there are still a few that are wired through this phone box, so it hasn’t been removed. After it had been vandalized on multiple occasions, a wrought iron fence was built around it.
“The event was born from one of the visions we embrace here for our residents at the Plant City Housing Authority (PCHA),” said its Executive Director, Patricia Dexter. “Our vision for this event was to introduce our children to art, culture, and other activities that could stimulate their minds toward positive growth. We decided to start with the old phone box on the corner of Alabama Street and Maryland as our focus. We believe that by using a practical method of ‘What do you see, versus what would you like to see—how to change the old phone box from ashes into beauty?’”
On Saturday, November 23, the PCHA hosted, “Ashes to Beauty,” an art contest that brought children out in the neighborhood to re-imagine the eyesore and turn it into their own art. The Festival also offered bounce houses, snowcones, a prize drawing, hot dogs, popcorn, and a food truck giving out deep-fried Oreos provided by The Oreo Lady, Tiffany Ponds.
After one year and one day in prison, Ponds got out in 2010. “I had no family,” she said. In 2016, Ponds attempted to move into the PCHA. People told her she wouldn’t be able to get in because she is a convicted felon. “Well, I decided to go against what everybody was telling me, and sure enough, Miss Patricia Dexter gave me a chance.” Ponds moved to the Public Housing Authority, where she lived for seven years in an apartment. “I got my credit score right. I used the opportunity of staying there to come up. And then last year, in 2023, I purchased my first home—a three-bedroom, two-bath, compared to a two-bedroom, one-bath in the Plant City housing. It is so amazing how my life has turned around—just a complete 180 degrees. I didn’t have a husband. But now God has restored me with a daughter and a beautiful husband. I started my Oreo business….The business has taken off. I only have one thing on the menu—deep-fried Oreos. The Lord told me to go back to the prison after I get situated with my business. I am going back to talk to the girls and see if I can heal some women and get them with the Lord. That is my ultimate goal, because I feel like I only got healed by the glory of God.”
“I think it is great because my kids are able to enjoy themselves,” Sherry Fortson said. “And then we are about to learn something from the Oreo Lady that we haven’t known about.”
Soon afterwards, Ponds stood to speak as 50 people gathered around her. “If I could do it, anybody could do it,” she said. “All the odds were against me because I was convicted of a felony. I came from a family of poverty. How do you get yourself out of this poverty mindset and poverty situation? You’ve got to trust God. You’ve got to stop listening to all this music…all this bad rapping and bad actors out there. You’ve got to put the TV, and all of those negative things, down. Then you can hear what the Lord is trying to say to you. But with all the cluttering in your ears, you can’t hear what the Lord is trying to tell you, as far as starting a business, or going out there doing what it is that God ordained you to do….Keep pushing. Don’t give up.”
