Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 9, 1995 TAG: 9503150011
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BREEA WILLINGHAM STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
She was sitting in church one day 15 years ago, when she looked at the stained-glass windows and asked herself: "Why do we have painted windows? Because you don't want to see what's on the outside. That's when I caught the vision," she said.
From that vision came the Northwest Neighborhood Environmental Organization.
Despite her responsibilities at home - being a wife and mother to nine children - Thornhill helped make the organization one of Roanoke's most-prominent.
Over the past 15 years, the organization, whose motto is "You don't have to move to live in a better place," has organized neighborhood crime watches, renovated and sold nine homes, built nine rental units, cleaned up the Loudon Avenue Park and completed many other projects.
"I've been in this neighborhood for 50 years, and I saw a thriving neighborhood. Then it became vacant when the children moved away. The senior citizens couldn't take care of the homes and moved away to smaller homes," Thornhill said. "We took house by house and fixed them."
The organization, which has about 50 active members, recently received a grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to refurbish five more homes and build two new rental units.
Thornhill's leadership and accomplishments have not gone unnoticed. Last spring she represented Roanoke in Washington, D.C., when she received the President Volunteer Action Award for community service.
She has won other awards as well, such as the Roanoke Citizen of the Year award and the Governor's Award for Volunteering Excellence; and the neighborhood was named Neighborhood of the Year by Neighbors U.S.A.
Thornhill is one of just three Roanoke women who are among the eight citizens featured in WSLS-TV's second annual "African American Role Models: Excellence in Community Service" series.
Eunice Poindexter, a retired teacher, and Audrey Wheaton, interim director of the Northwest Childcare Center, share the spotlight with Thornhill as Roanoke's black role models.
These women were chosen as role models because of their unselfish contributions to their community.
"I have been and am involved in many community activities including religious, civic, etc. and hope these involvements will be influential in other [people's] lives," Poindexter said.
In her early years as a teacher, Poindexter taught speech and drama at the former Lucy Addison High School and served as the school's choir director for 17 years. She also taught speech and drama at the former Booker T. Washington Junior High School and was coordinator of human resources at Breckinridge Junior High School.
"Teaching was my whole life, and I enjoyed every minute of it," Poindexter said. In 1976, after teaching for 41 years, Poindexter retired and received a key to the city for teaching the most consecutive years.
Wheaton, who was in school during the time Poindexter was a teacher, received an English degree from Hampton University and wanted to become a teacher. But because of her desire to help people, she said she has done more social work than anything else.
"There is so much that needs to be done, I don't see how people can just sit back and watch the boob tube."
Wheaton retired in 1992 as the associate director of the YWCA of Roanoke Valley and assumed her new position at Northwest Childcare Center seven months ago. She also teaches Sunday school at the First Baptist Church, is an assistant registrar for the city, a member of the Zeta Phi Beta sorority and writes a column in the Roanoke Tribune with her daughter, Donna Davis.
Despite their endless contributions and hard work, two of these women do not consider themselves role models.
"I don't particularly see myself as a role model, but I've always done things that were right, and maybe that's why I'm seen as a role model," Poindexter said. However, Poindexter does admit she had a little something to do with producing some of Roanoke's other community leaders.
"I am very proud and privileged to have touched others' lives, such as Greta Evans, Mary Hackley, and Sara Holland. I have influenced their lives and am very proud because they are now community leaders, too," she said.
Evans is community services director for WSLS; Holland is director of youth services for Total Action Against Poverty, and Hackley is an administrator for the Roanoke public school system.
Thornhill said she wasn't looking for any honors when she came into this business, she just wanted to help.
"I didn't get into this for the publicity. I saw a need to help, and I've always helped others in need," Thornhill said.
"They [the public] say that I am a role model. I love what I'm doing and never thought I'd be seen as a role model," she added.
Wheaton, however, said she always believed in helping others and tries to be a good role model.
"I always opened my home to my son's and daughter's friends, and they would all call me Mom.''
Her family members, she said, are "the kind of people who see things need to be done and take the initiative to do them."
Whether these women consider themselves role models or not, they all agree that role models are important for young people.
"It has always been important," Poindexter said. "It's nothing like having an example to give them proper discipline."
"Things have gotten so out of control, and there are more things to distract them," Thornhill added. "They're lost to certain things, and they need people to show them they can endure life with less."
Wheaton, who believes young people need someone to look up to because of the many negatives on television, became a role model to one particular young woman when she was the associate director at the YWCA.
"A kid I helped place in foster care ended up as my foster daughter in her senior year of high school. I had always remembered her on her birthday, holidays and gave her odd jobs. When her foster home closed, she came to live with us. She died two years ago of AIDS."
So who was the role model in these women's lives? Without any hesitation, these women agreed their mothers made them the strong women they are.
"My one and only role model was my mother," Poindexter said. "I have to give credit to her for making us see life was worth living, even through the hardships."
Wheaton said she is often told she is a hard worker like her mother was. "A lot of people tell me I'm a lot like her. She was a member of the church, taught Sunday school and was a deaconess. I am all these things, too," Wheaton said.
Thornhill also said she possesses some of her mother's qualities, such as her humbleness and kindness.
by CNB