Still serving

Rosemary Roberts distributes food to a drive-up client at a weekly community outreach of Kingdom Revival Church in Ocala. [Photo by Andy Fillmore]

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Posted January 24, 2024 | By Andy Fillmore, [email protected]

Rosemary Roberts’ service didn’t end after a military career that included deployment in Operation Desert Storm and about 25 years with the U.S. Postal Service in Orlando and Ocala.

Roberts, 62, continues to serve others as director of hospitality at Kingdom Revival Church in Ocala, which entails overseeing a group of volunteers in a weekly drive-up community food distribution with upwards of 150 vehicles passing through.

“This is what I love to do,” Roberts said about continuing to serve others.

Roberts additionally oversees clothing distribution to needy people and community food basket distributions by the church for hundreds of people for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

As she wrapped up a recent food distribution, she helped two men who needing lodging during a cold snap.

“I have to make sure those two have motel rooms,” Roberts said.

She later confirmed arrangements were made for the men.

Roberts has the knack to combine kindness with military style efficiency, according to fellow volunteers at the church.

Catherine Ross said Roberts is “gentle but firm” about getting operations like the food distribution completed.

“(Roberts) will go out on a limb and never say ‘no’ (about helping),” said Leela Kellawan, adding that Roberts is very organized.

Roberts was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and moved to Brooklyn, New York, at age 10. Several members of her family were in the health care profession and during high school she began to do volunteer work at a hospital.

A mentor told her she was “crossing a line” and getting “too emotionally attached” to her patients. Roberts agreed and decided to seek another career.

Roberts’ mother “wasn’t happy” about her daughter joining the Army but signed for her to do so. Roberts went to basic training at Fort Dix, New Jersey.

Roberts said she “could tell stories” about the racial conditions and disparities in the treatment of Black and white soldiers in her earlier years in the Army.

“The higher ranking officers didn’t want to recognize it,” she said.

Roberts’ military occupation was as a nuclear, biological and chemical specialist. She became a U.S. citizen in 1991 while in the Army.

She was deployed to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War and was assigned to monitoring air quality around a Patriot missile site during Operation Desert Storm. While serving as an E-7 platoon sergeant in Germany an E-5 said during one of her training sessions that he “didn’t take orders from Black people,” she recalled.

“I told him I worked hard to earn these stripes ( and ) you will respect, not me, but the rank,” she said.

Roberts said when the Gulf War was underway, local residents never bothered her when she drove a vehicle but after the war ended people would throw rocks at her vehicle because she was a female driver.

Following her retirement from the Army in 1995, Roberts moved back to New York and started with the U. S. Postal Service there in 1996. A few years later she transferred to Orlando, then to Ocala in 2001, and remained with the postal service until 2021.

Cavinaugh Roberts, Rosemary’s husband, said the couple met at Fort Lewis, Washington, when he saw her “walking along.” The couple have been married for 37 years and have three adult children.

Jackie Haynes said her “mother is very efficient and dedicated.”

“For her church’s Thanksgiving and Christmas outreaches, she purchases items and makes food baskets (for those in need). I believe they’re up to about 200 baskets,” said Haynes, a confidential secretary with Marion County Public Schools.

Haynes recalled the family moving frequently and remembered living in locations including Germany and Panama.

Retired USPS worker Tim Legge, who worked with Roberts at the Ocala Post Office, said she has a “huge heart.”

He said when his son had a heart transplant, Roberts gave support that meant a lot and a “big hug.”

Donielle Roberts, the Roberts’ daughter, who is in the U.S. Air Force, wrote in an email message that her mother’s selflessness, which was “probably inherited from my grandmother Hazel Haynes,” has helped her become “more giving, compassionate and caring.”

“I have had the privilege of watching her serve in the Army and her local community for decades. She always is always thinking of others first and this was once not my favorite attribute but now it is what I exemplify,” she wrote. “It is my goal to help her expand her charity and get her recognized on television for all of her random acts of kindness.”