Near the corner of Myrtle Avenue and Moncrief Road sits a building where the community can learn how to reap the benefits of good health.
Northwest Jacksonville isn’t an area known for many opportunities, but Dr. Albert Chester II, plans to change that.
“I’ve watched the neighborhood go from being stable to being old, to now where it’s rotting,” Chester said.
Northwest Jacksonville is where his grandfather lived decades ago.
Chester was a football standout as quarterback for Episcopal High School. After graduating in 2003, he continued pursuing his love for football at Florida A&M University while earning a doctorate in pharmacy.
Years later, he returned to Jacksonville and quickly noticed a need for development.
“I wanted to start a school because I was looking for what would be the answer,” Chester said.
By 2016, Chester launched The Capstone Institute, a school that offers an alternative to an area where many face limited opportunity. The post-secondary vocational school has a focus on healthcare training.
“Now we’re giving people opportunity to get career training in their neighborhood,” Chester said. “You have food giveaways, you have different projects that people put in place. But, as the old saying goes, if you can teach someone to fish, they’ll eat for a lifetime."
Last year, Chester opened New Town Pharmacy to help students get hands-on training and land new jobs.
Chester’s New Town Pharmacy on Moncrief Road is the only pharmacy within a 3-mile radius.
It’s been a huge help to those in the community that have limited transportation and struggle to get their medicine.
He calls it his way to sow seed into an area that could use help.
“As a clinician, that’s how we treat diseases, you get to the root cause and that’s how you solve the whole problem,” Chester said.
He says he strives to be an example of endless possibilities.
“In pharmacy, playing football, all I kept telling myself is that it’s possible,” Chester said.
Chester says he plans to continue making an impact in Northwest Jacksonville in hopes to someday become a community leader.