Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 1, 1993 TAG: 9312010230
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
Volunteers for Communities, based in Ivanhoe and part of the Virginia Water Project in Roanoke, was awarded $71,300 from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and $34,900 from the Center on Rural Development in Richmond.
The money will be used to match students from around the country with needy communities in Virginia and seven other states, according to the organization's staff.
Student volunteers placed by Volunteers for Communities work on renovation and clean-up projects during summers and school breaks and at the same time learn about local history and culture from townspeople.
The organization recently helped local residents set up student programs in the Virginia communities of Fries, Damascus, Pearisburg and Buck Hill, near Natural Bridge. In Fries, a former mill town in Grayson County, students last summer renovated a theater; built flower beds; and repaired a swimming pool, gym and other parts of a community center.
The new grants will be used to organize at least five more volunteer projects in the coming year. They will include projects at the Lansdowne Park public housing complex in Roanoke and in Fries, the town of Floyd, the community of Cheapside on the Eastern Shore and in Westmoreland County through the Westmoreland Housing Coalition.
"We're still looking for other communities," said Maxine Waller, one of the group's organizers.
Waller and Sharon Stacy Blackwell, the staff of Volunteers for Communities, soon will hire a third staffer at their Ivanhoe office.
by CNB