Hometown Tour: Prichard

To Prichard residents like Angelia Lewis, her hometown is a place of great potential.

“Start something new, put together new programs that will help the surrounding communities that they'll find they really enjoy it,” says Lewis. She’s the executive director of Hands of Restoration Inc. Today she and a volunteer are putting together gift baskets. The group helps needy women in Prichard. Lewis says affordable housing is one of the biggest needs here.

“That's one of the goals of hands of restoration for this year is to work with the community and city officials and try and open a transitional house,” says Lewis. City officials say they're trying to address it with housing projects like “Hope 6.”

“The quality of life and sustainability of life in this community is very important as far as giving our citizens a place to live they can be proud of,” says Prichard Mayor Ron Davis. City officials say they want to make Prichard a friendlier and safer city. Police officials say violent crime and homicides are down. Police Administrator Pat Mitchell says his new two-man Leopard Unit specializes in high priority calls.

“Their job is to attack those areas and combat the crime,” says Mitchell. Other potential in Prichard is the forthcoming Alabama Motorsports Park. It's expected to have a huge impact.

“There are other tracks out there that have as many as 5000 jobs on the same amount of land that we do so we anticipate a lot of jobs,” says president and managing member Mike Dow.

Our next hometown tour is this Friday from Prichard.