G.W. Carver Community Center holds fundraiser, receives new sign

This past Sunday, the George Washington Carver Community Center held a fundraiser at its location on Fifth Avenue and Jefferson Street. The center, a Fourth District community anchor, promotes service activities and serves as a gathering place. Sunday’s event included a barbecue, games, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony featuring a new sign.

Carolyn McNary is the Center’s president. She helped organize the event along with a team of other volunteers. “We’re working this event together. Our sergeant at arms is very busy, our secretary has been doing a lot of stuff, whoever can show up is showing up,” McNary said.

Planning was impacted by the pandemic, McNary said. “People were little more involved in their families for months, so we didn’t have meetings, and all our plans to have this barbecue, and the yard sale which is coming up next month, all those things we would have probably done by now or had better time to plan for them, but we didn’t, so we just jumped up and started running.”

According to volunteer Rhealyn Patterson, the event went well. “I think we’re busier than we expected. Everybody’s been really pleasant and really patient. Things have been flying out of the kitchen.” Patterson was unsure of exact numbers, but said, “I think maybe we had in our minds 40 or 50, and it’s been well over probably 100 meals.”

Patterson said, “This is our kind of welcome back, and our way of kind of letting the community know we’re still here and getting back into the flow of things.” McNary said the Center’s membership is looking to bring new life to the organization. “We were having problems just taking care of our monthly bills and things, so we came up with ways we can earn money to keep us on our feet until we can possibly get grants or get more members involved.”

McNary’s community involvement is extensive. She is employed with Covered Bridge Healthcare of Centreville and the United Community Assistance Program, housed at the First Presbyterian Church in Three Rivers. She is in her tenth year as Fourth District City Commissioner. She serves on a Community Reinvestment Act board with Sturgis Bank and Trust, reviewing loan applications for anti-discrimination compliance. She is a mother, a grandmother, and a great grandmother.

Despite her busy schedule, McNary dedicates time to growing the Center’s reach and programming. “I keep office hours now from 4 to 8 on Mondays,” she said. “I’ve been setting this time aside because I want people to know that we have a spot to create something in the community.” McNary hopes to connect younger and older people in order to foster community service and involvement.

To do so, she wants to create dialogue. “We have such a gap in our understanding of our youth, and such a lack of respect for our elderly, but the only way we can come together and actually work to help one another is to understand each other. The only way we can understand each other is to listen. We’re always trying to tell the kids, ‘oh yeah, is that what you do? Well, you need to do this, you need to do that.’ No, you need to listen to what that kid’s doing, process it for a while, listen to that kid talk again, before you dive in and try to fix them. Let them hear you. And that’s really my hope,” McNary said.

The Carver Center has a long history of community involvement. “This building has been here since the 1940s,” McNary said. “It’s a community center, and it’s owned by the membership. They created this space because back then, Blacks weren’t welcome in other places. I think that’s been said around here enough, and that’s how it all started, but what I see now is we need something consistent. We need something that people say, ‘oh yeah, on Monday, I’m going to go over here.’”

Sunday’s event brought out a steady stream of visitors. Volunteers cooked rib tips, rib dinners, bratwurst, and quarter and half chickens. Boost Mobile provided a game and activity tent, sponsoring free dinners for some of its contestants. 

Boost also sponsored the new sign. Tommie Williamson, who operates Boost’s Three Rivers store, facilitated the donation. “There was a previous event, and Carolyn (McNary) asked me to be a part of that, with Black-owned businesses, to speak to them. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it, and I was thinking about a way to make up for that,” he said.

Williamson passes the Center every day driving to and from Portage and felt it needed a better sign. He wanted the replacement to be a surprise. “I tricked (McNary) by asking her, ‘hey, we’re changing colors at the shop, which one of these signs do you like?’ She picked black and yellow. I went to my sign guy, and he put it together, and last night we came and put it up. I surprised her this morning and let her know exactly what was happening and showed her the sign.” Williamson also donated funds to the Center during Sunday’s event.

Three Rivers Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Christy Trammell attended the event with Betty Kerley, also of the Chamber, and Downtown Development Authority Executive Director Tricia Meyer. The three helped facilitate a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new sign. “They’re an important part of our community, and we want to support them in any way we can,” Trammell said.

More Carver Center programs are in the works. A yard sale is planned for late August. It will serve as another fundraiser. “We also have the Covered Bridge mobile van that’s going to be parked here every Monday from 1 to 4 p.m. We’re partnering up with them to see if the community will be drawn to better health and better community,” McNary said.

McNary described the mobile van as a “clinic on wheels,” with a nursing staff on board who will be available to provide health assessments. Members of the public “can use their health insurance, or if not, they have a rolling scale,” McNary said. “They’re not going to turn anyone away.”

In the meantime, McNary is working to build a list of people who are willing to volunteer and join the conversations that will facilitate service activity. “If we get members that are interested in just helping, even if that means sitting back and listening to some kid talk, you know, just simple things that help us build, we just have to get back to that,” she said.

Eddie Neal, another Carver Center member and volunteer, encouraged donations to the Center. “If you do so, we really would appreciate it, because that goes toward helping keep this community center alive. I don’t know if anybody realizes, but all of the community centers in Three Rivers are closed now except for this one. The diversity is one thing we want, but we want everybody to understand that this place is for everyone to use.”

Dave Vago is a staff writer and columnist for Watershed Voice. A Philadelphia native with roots in Three Rivers, Vago is a planning consultant to history and community development organizations and is the former Executive Director of the Three Rivers DDA/Main Street program.