Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 23, 1994 TAG: 9404240010
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
Florine Thornhill had a simple wish and a small message to give President Clinton on Friday when they met in the White House Rose Garden.
But she doubted that she would get the chance to say much of anything to him.
The instructions were pretty specific, Thornhill said. ``I would only be able to receive the award and say thank you and look at the camera.''
It was disappointing.
Thornhill had hoped to give Clinton a gift on behalf of Roanoke and her neighborhood. ``They said I couldn't give it to him personally.'' She hoped maybe for a hug, too.
Hugs also were off-limits.
``It's not what you think it is to meet the president,'' Thornhill said.
Still, she held out hope.
Maybe she would get to say something.
Thornhill, 72, was in Washington on Friday to accept the president's Volunteer Action Award for her neighborhood group, the Northwest Neighborhood Environmental Organization. Thornhill is the group's leader and driving force.
The award is the highest honor given by the president for volunteerism, and the Roanoke neighborhood group was one of 21 organizations or individuals selected for the award from more than 5,000 nominations across the country.
Thornhill wore a new dress suit. ``When you're coming to an occasion like this, I think you ought to look your best.'' Pinned to her lapel were two buttons: ``Roanoke Proud'' and ``A Chance to Change Tomorrow,'' which is the slogan of her neighborhood group.
Thornhill carried with her a Roanoke Crystal Star - the city's highest honorary recognition - to present to Clinton.
She had to hand over the gift before the White House ceremony so it could be inspected to ensure it couldn't harm Clinton.
About 200 people attended Friday's Rose Garden ceremony on a gloriously clear spring day.
Thornhill wasn't nervous. ``Just excited, as excited as a little child getting a Popsicle for the first time,'' she said.
Clinton ran late, perhaps waiting until after Hillary Rodham Clinton finished up a news conference on the Whitewater scandal that preceded the awards.
``There are worse places to be spending an extra half-hour,'' he said.
He gave a short speech saluting the award winners and plugging his own community service initiative, Americorps.
Then he stepped back, and actor James Edward Olmos, honorary chairman of National Volunteer Week, took the podium. He read off the accomplishments of each of the 21 winners as they crossed a platform to shake Clinton's hand.
When it came Thornhill's turn, she broke ranks, like some of the others before her, and said more than a simple thank-you.
``First, I told him that we loved him,'' she said. She pointed to the buttons on her dress. ``I said we have a chance at changing tomorrow.''
Clinton nodded and smiled, but didn't comment.
``And I said, `You remember your campaign slogan? Don't stop thinking about tomorrow.'''
Then she turned to the cameras and paused longer than most of the other award winners. She stood up straight and held her head proudly high.
``It's a shame they don't let you have a few words with him,'' she said. ``But I wasn't coming here without saying something.''
Thornhill got a chance to repeat her message to Clinton as he left the Rose Garden. ``I said, `Don't forget, don't stop thinking about tomorrow, and we love you, and we're praying for you,' and he gave a big smile then.''
On a day when Washington was humming about Hillary Clinton's news conference and the civil war in Bosnia, the volunteer awards didn't make national headlines.
But to the winners, such as Thornhill, and their hometowns, Friday's Rose Garden ceremony was a chance to wear their community pride with honor.
``It's everything I dreamed of,'' Thornhill said. ``I got to say something. It was my first chance and maybe my last, and I wanted to take advantage of it.''
Her community pride dates back to 1945, when she and her husband, John, a brick mason, moved to Centre Avenue in Northwest Roanoke. The neighborhood was poor, populated by working-class and low-income families, but in the years before desegregation, there was a sense of community spirit among its residents. People took pride in their homes and where they lived, Thornhill said.
It was a place where she raised nine children without any regrets, without fear.
They bought their house for $2,700 and borrowed an additional $500 from the bank to begin renovations. ``We kept fixing a room at a time, a room at a time, a room at a time,'' she said.
It was much the same way she would attack her decaying neighborhood some 35 years later, only instead of fixing one room, she concentrated on a vacant lot, or an abandoned house, or a neglected park, solving one problem at a time.
By 1980, such problems had overtaken her once-proud community. Crimes and drugs had moved in as families moved out and the older residents died off. The story of how Thornhill and about a dozen other women from the neighborhood formed the Northwest Neighborhood Environmental Organization has been told many times since then.
The group started small, with simple things such as a neighborhood watch program and community cleanup days. Membership climbed to more that 100 in the neighborhood, bordered by Fifth and 14th streets, and Shenandoah and Moorman avenues.
Thornhill learned to work the system well. In the past 12 years, her neighborhood group has received more than $200,000 in local and federal grants for neighborhood improvement. Another $250,000 has been invested by the private sector.
With that money, the group has rehabilitated nine vacant houses; built two single-family homes and a four-apartment house; renovated a vacant house into a community center; refurbished Loudon Avenue Park; bought 30 dilapidated houses or vacant lots for maintenance and future development; and assisted with closing costs, down payments and repairs for several families that purchased homes in the neighborhood.
Overall property values in the neighborhood have increased 600 percent.
Largely through her efforts, Thornhill's neighborhood now has an influx of young families and renewed hope for the future, where there just as easily could have been a slum.
She never dreamed her civic work would lead to meeting the president. But maybe it was inevitable. Thornhill previously has won Roanoke's Citizen of the Year Award, the Governor's Award for Volunteering Excellence, and her neighborhood was named Neighborhood of the Year by Neighborhoods U.S.A.
Her neighborhood group was nominated for the president's award by the city of Roanoke.
``It's had to digest. I'm trying to stay calm,'' Thornhill said. ``I feel very deeply humbled.''
Yet, she said her work is far from done. ``We could complete this neighborhood if everyone would join in.''
The question is: Would the president have enough awards then to go around?
by CNB