Community organization tenants of the newly renovated Booker T. Washington Community Center in the Pleasant Hill neighborhood cut a ribbon during a ceremony Wednesday afternoon.

Community organization tenants of the newly renovated Booker T. Washington Community Center in the Pleasant Hill neighborhood cut a ribbon during a ceremony Wednesday afternoon.

Credit: Jason Vorhees/The Telegraph

 

Macon-Bibb County officials and community members celebrated a ribbon cutting Wednesday for the Booker T. Washington Center.

The center has been closed for nearly five years, and the county has spent $1.1 million to renovate the building and reopen it as a community center.

Tedra Huston, executive director of the Community Enhancement Authority, said the building has served as a community center in Pleasant Hill for 80 years, and it was the place where everything happened in the Pleasant Hill community.

“Today is almost unreal actually. We’ve been working on the project two years now,” she said. “My oldest son, who is 23, actually attended Booker T. for summer camp when he was in middle school, and so, I remember Booker T. Washington Community Center so many years ago; then coming in when they first started the project and it was just in such a disarray and seeing it now, it’s just amazing. it’s just an exciting day.”

The center will house several nonprofit organizations that offer a variety of services as well as provide a cooperation space for the community. Many of the services and activities will focus on the youth in the Pleasant Hill Neighborhood, including tutoring services and activities in art, culture and dance, Huston said.

Visitors tour the newly renovated Booker T. Washington Community Center in the Pleasant Hill neighborhood Wednesday afternoon after a ribbon cutting ceremony.

Visitors tour the newly renovated Booker T. Washington Community Center in the Pleasant Hill neighborhood Wednesday afternoon after a ribbon cutting ceremony.

Credit: Jason Vorhees/The Telegraph

“Our main thing is we want to make sure we have programming here every day during the week for our young people. They have a safe place to come. They have something that’s going to enlighten not only their minds, but their hands… So many times our young people in our most disadvantaged communities don’t get those opportunities to take music classes, to learn an instrument, to go out and create a sculpture, to paint a wall, and we want to do all that for our young people,” Huston said.

“I believe by doing that, the small things that we’re seeing that people think are so detrimental, which are detrimental to our community, are going to start turning around because our young people are finally given something positive, and people speaking positivity into them.

An open house will be held for the community Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and although the pool is still under construction, Huston said they plan to open it for the summer season.

  • Southern Center for Choice Theory will provide free mental health services to the community.

  • C-Qul works to remove barriers for people to access mental health care and improve aspects of life that stresses the community, such as food insecurity, blight and violence.

  • Pace Center for Girls focuses on educating and supporting young women.

  • The Melanated Communities Stimulation Project, Inc., focuses on food insecurity and uplifting the community.

  • The Eric Foundation, a music and dance program

  • Mosaic Development will partner with the Community Enhancement Authority to provide job training.

  • The Booker T Washington Reunion Committee will be providing hands on programming in the community.

  • The Vexiom Group is a developer that will be working with small businesses in the community.

  • The Community Enhancement Authority works to end blight and poverty in the Macon-Bibb County community and assists people with affordable housing and financial literacy.

AARP and Central Georgia Technical College will also offer programming.

Commissioner Virgil Watkins asked the tenants of the building at the opening to let the county know when there are problems in the building because he wants the center to stay open for good.

“Let us be good landlords, so we can keep this resource here in the community to perpetuity. That’s what we always do. We close it. We open it, and it hurts the kids, and it hurts the families,” he said. “That’s my plea, as we do this again, that this is the last time that we cut this ribbon, that we’re making a commitment from now on to Pleasant Hill to support it with resources that we know it needs.”

This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with The Telegraph.