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MURFREESBORO – “Bloom where you are planted” was one of Sallie Surface’s favorite sayings.

She followed her own advice.

Surface, who assisted local families in various ways since 1983 – including 31 years as Executive Director of the Choanoke Area Development Association of NC, Inc., (CADA) – passed away Wednesday morning.

“This has been a heavy blow to the CADA family, Roanoke-Chowan area, community action family, and the state,” said Andre Rowe who serves CADA as its Interim Executive Director. “Mrs. Sallie P. Surface and the ‘work’ will forever be engrained in our hearts and minds. The Surface family has our heartfelt condolences.”

Rowe noted that through Surface’s work and leadership, thousands of low-income families have received assistance such as home repair and home rehabilitation, weatherization, rental assistance, workforce development, pre-school education, home-buyer education, and community action programs.

Up until her death, Surface was still actively engaged with CADA as its Executive Director Emeritus as well maintaining her involvement with the North Carolina Housing Partnership Board.

First employed by CADA in 1983 as its Manager of Community Services, Surface was promoted to Executive Director in 1990 and remained in that full-time role until her retirement in 2021.

Through her leadership, CADA became the grantee for the Head Start Program in Bertie, Halifax, Hertford, and Northampton counties in 1995. That was followed by the Early Head Start program.

She oversaw the work that helped open residential subdivisions for low-income families in Rich Square (Choanoke Meadows) and Roanoke Rapids (Southgate).

Other projects included the Parents as First Teachers Program in Hertford County; a Family Resource Center in Garysburg; the Support Our Students Program (SOS) at Garysburg Elementary School and Rich-Square-Creecy; and the Welfare to Work Program that provided support services and work experience for families that were receiving assistance to move them to self-sufficiency.

CADA was also at the forefront locally following Hurricane Floyd in 1999, serving as the Housing Disaster Recovery Center to assist storm victims complete applications and secure assistance. CADA staff also assisted storm victims to secure the use of temporary FEMA units until their housing needs were resolved. It also assisted the local counties to apply to the Redevelopment Centers for Crisis Housing Assistance Funding for the Repair and Replacement Program. CADA repaired/replaced 205 homes under this program.

Surface tackled three huge projects that not only provided much-needed apartments locally, but also preserved landmarks. The conversion of the historic Woodland-Olney School into 30 senior apartments was completed in 1998. The same occurred at the historic Ahoskie High School (circa 1929) where 41 apartments opened in 2007. Four years later (2011), CADA, with the assistance of many partners, developed the historic Enfield School into 36 senior apartments.

At the ribbon-cutting event that formally opened the Ahoskie High School Apartments, then CADA Board of Directors President Cleveland Blount said, “If we had not listened to Sallie Surface a number of years ago, this project would not be possible.”

Additionally at that time there was a restoration committee involved in restoring and maintaining the school building.

“There had been a lot of ups and downs [with the project], things were looking bleak, but then God put Sallie Surface in front of us and she turned it around,” said Charles Hughes, one of the members of the restoration committee.

Surface, a graduate of Wake Forest College-now University, had additional training in Economics and Community Development. She graduated from the Rural Economic Development Institute and the Center for Creative Leadership and served on the Board of Directors for the North Carolina Low-Income Housing Coalition, North Carolina CRANC (Community Reinvestment Act), and the PNC Eastern North Carolina Advisory Board.

Surface was a Senate appointee to the North Carolina Housing Partnership Board that provides oversight of the North Carolina Housing Trust Fund. She was the vice chair of that board.

She was a member of the NC Weatherization Assistance Program Advisory Council and has been a presenter/facilitator for local, state, and national conferences such as the National Rebuild America Conference, National Affordable Energy Conference, and National Weatherization conferences.

Surface was featured in the Wall Street Journal for her advocacy for rural banking services as many rural communities are finding themselves in financial deserts.

She received the 2006 Outstanding Rural Leadership Award presented by the NC Rural Economic Development Center and the Rural Economic Development Organization.

In April 2015, Governor Pat McCrory conferred the Order of the Long Leaf Pine to Surface for her 30-plus years of service to the citizens of North Carolina.

She was inducted into the North Carolina Community Action Hall of Fame in 2004.

In August of 2021, the CADA Board of Directors renamed the organization’s administrative office in Rich Square as the Sallie P. Surface Complex.

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. on Saturday, April 12 at Chowan University. The family has asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Dan Surface Memorial Scholarship fund at Chowan University.