Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 25, 1993 TAG: 9302250398
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: N-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY JO SHANNON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
HER DREAMS FOR KIDS START WITH A PIANO
Brenda Campbell has a dream for some children in Lincoln Terrace - a dream that needs a piano.For some time she has been playing opera music at her home in the housing project, and children from the neighborhood have been listening. Their enthusiastic response has amazed her.
"Children love music," said Campbell, who grew up on Loudon Avenue Northwest and studied piano with Louise Guerrant for 7 1/2 years. She has also had four years of voice training with Guerrant.
When Guerrant moved to a nursing home, she gave Campbell her music library and collection. Rather than try to sell her inheritance, Campbell wants to use it with the children at the housing project.
"If I just had a piano in [the community room at Lincoln Terrace], we could have a choir, and I could use my music background to share with these children," she said.
Campbell has had experience working with children. While living in Columbus she served as a volunteer at the Ohio School for the Deaf where her son, Omar Bryant, was enrolled. School officials remember her as an enthusiastic leader of Story Book Hour, who often came in costume or used other innovative techniques to hold the children's attention. She also became proficient in sign language, and hopes someday to teach signing at Lincoln Terrace.
When Omar was ready for secondary school, Campbell decided to send him to a private school. She chose the Model Secondary School for the Deaf, a branch of Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C.
With an older son away from home and the younger one in boarding school, Campbell, divorced and alone, returned to Roanoke.
"My parents [Othello and Mamie Petty] still lived here, and I would be near enough to Washington to travel back and forth visiting my son," she said.
Campbell needed an apartment she could afford and investigated Lincoln Terrace. She said problems involving drug dealers at the housing project frightened her, and she backed away.
"Then, I thought, who do I think I am to be scared to live here with my own people? When I saw how some people had been working to change the situation, I decided to do my part and got involved, too," she said.
Campbell helped organize a 4-H group and the Lincoln Terrace Youth Summer Employment program for 23 children, ages 7-13.
A beautification contest last summer added incentive as the young people picked up paper and helped residents plant flower beds.
Next summer she plans to expand the program to two other housing projects, thanks to a grant she received from the National Garden Association. She has been accepted into the Masters Gardeners Program in Roanoke and plans to teach others the skills she has learned.
"We've come a long way here at Lincoln Terrace," Campbell said. "We are proud of what we've accomplished, but we are not where we want to be."
Campbell wants more than summer activities for the children. She would like to see dance classes, glee clubs and choirs filling the community room at Lincoln Terrace, with students from surrounding colleges offering their services to teach ballet and art classes.
"We could put on a major fund-raising production to benefit children's programs in the valley. Why, we could make our own backgrounds and costumes and have our own orchestra . . . "
But for the present, Campbell's dream would be satisfied if she had a piano.
To contact Campbell, call 345-9010 after 4 p.m.