Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 1, 1990 TAG: 9004010124
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KEVIN KITTREDGE SHENANDOAH BUREAU
DATELINE: LEXINGTON LENGTH: Medium
It was more than a decade ago, as Jim Bowen remembers it. The school system wanted to close the building, which had once been the city's all-black high school.
"A lot of people were saying it would be nice if we could do something with it," recalled Bowen, chairman of the board for the Rockbridge Area Recreation Organization. "Nobody had the money."
On Jan. 15, the building was rededicated as the Lylburn Downing Community Center, after weeks of renovation work.
The cost: approximately $30,000, plus a lot of volunteer labor.
The Lexington City Council finally chipped in the funds - the same amount of money, Bowen said, that would have been needed to tear the old building down and haul its remains away in the 1970s.
The council's contribution, coupled with volunteer labor from students at Virginia Military Institute and Washington and Lee University, helped turn the ramshackle building in the heart of the city's predominantly black neighborhood into a citywide community center.
Since its opening Jan. 15, organization officials say, the community center has lived up to its name.
It is used not only by neighborhood children - who come by after school to use the game room and study area - but by city groups, athletic teams, yoga classes and the county school system, said organization Executive Director Doug Chase.
"Community groups are using the center. We had hoped for that," said the Rev. J.B. Harris, chairman of the center's activities committee and a neighborhood resident. "It is open to all segments of the community."
"The thing I have been most pleased with is the legitimate use the building's receiving, and the respect," said Chase. "People have been extremely cooperative."
After serving as a high school for blacks, the building became an elementary school after integration in the mid-1960s, Chase recalled.
It was used in the 1980s by the National Guard, which recently moved to new quarters outside the city.
The center is now run by the Rockbridge Area Recreation Organization under a contract with the city.
"Every time it seemed like it was going to die, it got saved," said Chase.
The community center, used by children in the afternoons, is open to any child who will sign a form promising to abide by its rules, Chase said.
It is staffed by Chase; programs director Chad Joyce; Tammy Merchant, who directs the Office on Youth; and Todd Mays, who "does everything," Chase said.
The center's uses still are evolving - "We're still feeling our way along," said Chase - but one of its purposes is to provide a healthy environment for kids, he said.
"People have always said, `There's no place to go that's intimidation-free, drug-free and alcohol-free,' " Chase said. "And this is. Kids who are seeking this kind of environment know that it's here."
Even if trouble erupts, Chase said, other children usually step in and stop it. "Peer pressure has taken care of most things."
In addition, the center is used by the Rockbridge Area Hospice, the Diamond Hill Neighborhood Association, an exercise class for geriatrics, a drug-awareness group, Youth Experiencing Success - a program in which schoolteachers work intensely with children targeted as potential dropouts - and other groups, said Chase.
by CNB