THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, November 29, 1995 TAG: 9511290404
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MIKE KNEPLER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 104 lines
When Gov. George F. Allen honors the Pughsville Community Project tonight, the recognition will re-validate something that neighbors Virginia Gaines and Mary Richardson have known for many years.
``Neighbors have to be concerned about one another and reach out to help someone else,'' said Gaines. ``It feels great that we could work together to get something accomplished. It's a blessing.''
When Mary Watson of Portsmouth's Prentis Place neighborhood accepts a similar award tonight on behalf of the Portsmouth Community Development Group, she'll see the honor as another dimension to her citizenship.
``You don't just accept the award for yourself or the organization but for the whole city,'' Watson said.
Allen will issue ``Governor's Achievement Awards'' for the Pughsville and Prentis Place programs at the annual Governor's Conference on Housing, being held in Hampton this year. Other communities being honored include the Sawmill Affordable Housing program in Northampton County on the Eastern Shore, the Newport News Police Anti-Crime Partnership and Newport News' Warwick Single Room Occupancy Homeless Project.
More than 700 housing and neighborhood activists as well as federal, state and local government officials are expected to participate in the three-day conference.
The theme this year is ``Unleashing Opportunities in Virginia's Inner Cities and Rural Communities.'' Many participants, such as Gaines and Watson, say citizens help create the opportunities.
In Pughsville - a neighborhood split by the Chesapeake-Suffolk city line - the opportunity came out of the community vision of Melvin Copeland Sr., 52, a retired longshoreman. He was concerned about housing conditions for two families living in dilapidated homes.
``Me and some other men were talking about this,'' Copeland said in an interview last month. ``We saw the dire need, so we decided to act.''
The men won the support of the neighborhood's two civic leagues and reached into their pockets for the initial donations.
Meanwhile, Mary Richardson, president of Suffolk's Pughsville Civic League, began campaigning for contributions from other groups in Chesapeake, Suffolk and Portsmouth. That included Habitat for Humanity and the Portsmouth chapter of the LesGemmes Club, a social and civic organization for business women and teachers.
Doing most of the construction work themselves, the neighbors built a new house for one family and are preparing to build a home for the other family. ``We do it because they're our neighbors,'' said Gaines, president of Chesapeake's Pughsville Civic League.
But the spirit seems to have caught on with other civic leagues.
``This is what civic league efforts should be about, people working within their own communities to get a problem resolved,'' said Gene Waters, president of the Chesapeake Council of Civic Organization. He helped install the ceilings, and his newsletter publicized fund-raising efforts.
In Portsmouth's Prentis Place, citizens are learning new ways to contribute to the rebuilding of their neighborhood.
The energy often comes from citizens discovering they can make a difference, said Watson, now a board member of the Portsmouth Community Development Group.
In 1989, she and her husband, Allen, were living in a rundown home in Academy Park and expecting their third child. ``I didn't want to bring a new child home to this house,'' Mary Watson recalled.
They heard about the Habitat for Humanity program, which builds affordable houses for low-income working families. But before they applied for a home, they joined as volunteers.
Making contributions, and learning that other citizens cared about them, motivated Watson to expand her civic activities, eventually leading her to the Portsmouth Community Development Group.
``I haven't stopped. I keep looking for more and more ways to make a difference,'' she said. ``Once you hit one level, you go onto another level, and you pull along others. It's really contagious.''
With help from volunteers such as Watson and partnerships with the Portsmouth government and various businesses, the community development group has 27 new and rehabilitated houses in Prentis Place.
They've also used the effort to springboard into community arts and small-business incubator programs in other parts of Portsmouth, said Maury Cooke Jr., founder.
The organization has made many mistakes, even angering some people it has tried to help, Cooke said, acknowledging that not everyone was satisfied with their new homes.
``There was some lack of communication on our part and we didn't involve enough people from the community,'' he said. ``We're working to resolve the complaints.''
Besides learning from mistakes, Cooke said there have been other lessons from being involved in a grass-roots community organization.
``Never look at it as having all the answers,'' he said was one. ``Always look at it with improvements in mind . . . If you act like you have all the answers, it blocks other people out.''
Another lesson he learned was that ``people support what they helped create. Get as many people as you can to create these things . . . Listen to people across the community.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photos
Gov. George Allen will honor the Pughsville Community Project and
Portsmouth's Prentis Place neighborhood.
Mary Richardson, president of Suffolk's Pughsville Civic League,
campaigned for contributions from other groups.
by CNB