THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, November 29, 1995 TAG: 9511290406
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MIKE KNEPLER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 98 lines
A crackling campfire sent sparks into the darkening sky over southern Chesapeake.
Nearby, under a picnic shelter, leaders of the Chesapeake Council of Civic Organizations announced the names and achievements of this year's community-service award recipients.
As each name was applauded, one figure kept rising from his picnic bench to render an extra cheer.
That one-man standing ovation was Melvin Copeland Sr.
``I enjoy seeing people working in their communities and getting recognized for it . . . What they do goes beyond what the eye can see,'' Copeland later explained.
Copeland, 52, a retired longshoreman living in Chesapeake's Pughsville neighborhood, knows the value of community self-help from the inside.
Not only is he vice president of his civic league, but he has spearheaded efforts to build new homes for two neighbors in need.
He learned civic skills from a variety of experiences, including serving on a labor-union committee and the trustees board of New Hope Baptist Church in Suffolk.
Copeland has worked on all phases of the housing-construction project. He helped conceive the idea, waded through legal paperwork, raised donations and volunteered his labor from pouring the foundation to nailing the roof.
Ask him about it, though, and he's quick to spread the credit. The work couldn't be done, Copeland says, without many others who volunteered or made large donations. They included Welton and William Gaines, Wayne White, Ulyesses Kee, Len Richardson, Jasper Taylor, Linwood Copeland Jr. and the late John Alexander.
Support, Copeland notes, also came from several community groups, including the two Pughsville civic leagues and their presidents, Virginia Gaines and Mary Richardson.
Nevertheless, Copeland got the biggest ovation last month at the Council of Civic Organizations' awards night when he received the Presidents Award. And, today, Copeland and his Pughsville neighbors will be honored by Gov. George Allen.
Last month, Copeland said he enjoyed showing appreciation for fellow activists from across Chesapeake. ``I just appreciate being a part of it,'' he said. ``This is my community. I was born and raised here. I just wanted to give something back.''
In October, the Council of Civic Organizations honored 48 people, including folks like:
Mary Haddad and Carol Rodenbaugh, coordinators of the Fun Forest project, which raised $400,000 in cash and materials for a children's park; Brian Whitesell of the Etheridge Woods Civic League, whose efforts boosted membership from 20 to 200 residents in one year; Marguerite Steen who led a petition drive against an apartment complex in Point Elizabeth; Aaron Ashanti, a founder of the West River Civic League; and Charles and Carolyn O'Rourke who helped lead a voter-registration campaign in Mill Creek-Elmwood Landing.
The event ``is a way of providing a format so people can see what they've done,'' said Gene Waters, president of the Chesapeake CCO.
There's yet another way to read the honor roll. Here was a ready checklist of skills that most any grass-roots group needs to advance its cause - and, for that matter, to strengthen entire cities.
Voter registration, writing and distributing newsletters, telephoning neighbors for community meetings, leading petition drives, serving as block captains, cooking for neighborhood festivities, coordinating block parties.
``It's a way of sharing that with other people,'' Waters said. ``When you read off their awards, it's a way of celebration.''
Those who study community building say that celebrations, no matter what size or form, are important to the long-term viability of grass-roots activism.
``We included celebration as one of the arts of democracy. That surprised a lot of people,'' said Frances Moore Lappe, co-author of the guidebook, ``The Quickening of America: Rebuilding Our Nation, Remaking Our Lives.''
``Most people focus on problems'' when addressing community issues, Lappe said. ``If we're going to sustain ourselves in public life, we also have to do those things that the human spirit needs, such as celebration.
``Even if we don't accomplish that much in whatever we're trying to do, we should celebrate what we've learned'' and build on that.
The idea, Lappe said, is to show that civics isn't just sludge work. ``Getting involved with neighbors is a lot more fun than sitting home and watching the tube,'' she said.
The celebrations don't even have to be events.
The Lafayette-Winona Civic League in Norfolk celebrates achievements through its newsletter. The October issue recognized Lewis C. Carter for sprucing up a line of hedges near his home.
Carter pays his lawn service for the extra work although he doesn't own the nuisance area, which runs along a wall of the nearby Lafayette Shores neighborhood.
In appreciation, the Carter family was given lifetime free membership in the civic league, said Carl Meredith, president. ILLUSTRATION: file photo
JOHN H. SHEALLY II/The Virginian-Pilot
Melvin Copeland Sr., 52, right, and William Gaines hang wallboard on
homes for neighbors in need.
by CNB