THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 12, 1995 TAG: 9502110038
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TONI WHITT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ROANOKE LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
It was one ordinary woman with an extraordinarily simple request of City Hall that helped turn around a blighted block and a troubled neighborhood, and changed how this city interacts with its citizens and, possibly, how America will reconnect with its government.
Florine Thornhill, 73, had no intention of causing such a stir. She just decided to do something small to make her block better.
So she marched down to City Hall and asked a suspicious official if she could borrow a lawn mower to clean up one abandoned and overgrown lot.
For years, she had walked her neighborhood with blinders to the blight, stepping past the decaying homes, drug deals and derelicts.
One Sunday in 1979, on her way to the church choir, she passed an unconscious woman in the overgrowth of a nearby lot.
Thornhill assumed it was a drug addict and walked on. But she couldn't dismiss the woman from her mind.
What, she found herself wondering, would Jesus have her do?
So she turned back home and got her son to help her get the woman to safety.
Thornhill never learned the woman's name, or why she was unconscious.
But the encounter opened her eyes to the sadness and poverty she had spent so much time blocking out.
The mother of nine - including one child with mental disabilities - decided to do what she could. She borrowed that mower and cleaned one lot.
Her neighbors became curious, then joined in. On weekends, 15 middle-aged and elderly residents soon were picking up trash and mowing vacant lots.
In City Hall, officials noticed that the once-decrepit neighborhood had begun to shine. In 1980, Roanoke asked Thornhill and her Gilmer neighbors to join in a pilot project with three other city neighborhoods.
It would allow them to help set goals for the city, to show the officials how to turn their poor, urban areas around.
The experiment was successful, thanks to Thornhill and other ordinary people like her. Today, 25 neighborhoods are working in the system to improve Roanoke.
Other Virginia cities have followed Roanoke's lead. And the Roanoke model is being studied across America, as government officials try to involve the people they serve.
Last year, Thornhill and her group, the Northwest Neighborhood Environmental Organization, won the 1994 President's Volunteer Action Award presented by President Clinton for volunteer efforts that change a community.
But Thornhill said her real measure of success is not in White House recognition.
It is in the children playing at a fully equipped park that was once an open-air market for drug dealers. It is in the homes that her group has been able to buy and rebuild with housing grants they tracked down and won with some city help.
It is in the professionals they have been able to entice back to Gilmer with low-interest loans, and it is in the part-time worker they have been able to hire to help organize neighborhood activities and get more grant money.
``It's just so wonderful to see the children coming home,'' Thornhill said. ``I know they care. They will keep this neighborhood going long after I'm gone.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
FLORINE THORNHILL
The 73-year-old Roanoke woman started with a simple goal: She wanted
to do something to make her block better. In 1979, she borrowed a
lawn mower to clean up one abandoned, overgrown lot. Soon, 15
middle-aged and elderly residents were picking up trash and mowing
vacant lots. In 1980, three neighborhoods were cleaning up. Today,
25 neighborhoods are working.
by CNB