Hometown Hero: Rev. Bernadette Watkins

Depending on the day, Rev. Bernadette Watkins could be coordinating a community peace rally or holding a neighborhood movie night on an inflatable screen in front of her home.

Watkins, 78, is a longtime community activist, children’s advocate and pastor of Huntington Outreach Ministries, which she established in 2009. In that role, she also preaches, counsels and officiates at weddings at the Christian Charities Deliverance Church in Huntington.

Watkins’ wide-ranging efforts were recently recognized by the Town of Huntington, which on Sept. 15 renamed East Fourth Street, where she lived for two decades until 2016, as “Rev. Bernadette R. Watkins Way.”

“Rev. Watkins has instilled core values of faith and community through her countless hours of service,” town officials said in a release announcing the street renaming. “She has provided for the community by feeding and sheltering those in need and providing care, love, comfort and guidance to people of all ages.”

The reverend’s other endeavors include hosting a reading program for local kids through the Tri Community and Youth Agency in Huntington, and accumulating an extensive collection of Black history memorabilia that she frequently displays at local schools, community centers and places of worship.

Her collection has grown large enough to fill 30 plastic bins, and it includes items ranging from old dolls and figurines to records released by iconic Black musicians.

“I go to thrift stores and look for different things,” Watkins said. “Some of the thrift stores around here know me, and so if they get something that they think I’m interested in, they call me.”

Watkins also arranged “midnight street walks” with a group of about 10 people from the Mt. Calvary Holy Church of Huntington in an effort to get drug users off the streets and into rehabilitation programs during the early 1990s, she said. Her other efforts have included transporting several busloads of local children to the second inauguration of former President Barack Obama in Washington, D.C., in 2013.

Watkins, who has also worked at numerous nursing homes, has 10 adopted children and has hosted dozens of foster children over the years, in addition to having four biological children.

“My overall goal is this: to love people and to let them know that other people are concerned,” Watkins said. Of having the street renamed in her honor, she said: “I appreciate it, and it’s nice, but I’ve got so much more that I have to do.”

By Michael R. Ebert

michael.ebert@newsday.com

Michael R. Ebert is an education researcher and has worked for Newsday in various capacities since 2003. He was part of an 11-person team named as 2008 Pulitzer Prize finalists for investigative coverage of the LIRR's platform safety issues.