by Brooke Bunch

The people of Portland have a place to call home thanks in part to Community Service Programs (CSP) and ComCorps, CSP’s AmeriCorps affiliate. Soon the rural southern Ohio community will soon be settling into their first ever community center.

Complete with a food bank and a Civil War museum, Portland’s new community center will serve as a multipurpose facility. The center also will house health and social service programs according to ComCorps member, Kerri Shaw. The museum exists because Portland, in Meigs County, is the only civil war battleground in Ohio.

Shaw expects to have programs ready to run in the new community center by spring or early summer.

“The people here are behind the center and really want to see it up and running,” she says.

“It’s important because it’s their own place, and they’re making it what they want it to be,” she says. “It’s a very empowering project. There’s a lot of excitement about it.”

Shaw is working in conjunction with the Appalachian Nutrition Network to provide community meals free of charge to the Portland community, as well as to the large migrant population, which is comprised of about 400 Hispanic and Guatemalan workers during the peak season.

“Migrant workers represent a big chunk of the population,” Shaw says. “We hope what we’re doing helps to bridge the cultural gap in Portland.”

The new community center is rising out of an abandoned school building that the center’s board of directors purchased for $1 from the county. For three years the board has been working towards the center’s completion, replacing windows, installing an all-new security system and, soon to be, a new roof. Plans are also being pushed to create a computer lab in the center.

“It’s a very small community with rural people who have problems accessing services because everything is at least 30 miles away,” Shaw says.

ComCorps volunteers helped in the process by cleaning walls, windows and painting the interior of the community center for “Make a Difference Day,” a nationwide day of volunteer service held Oct. 23.

Nancy Schell, head of the ComCorps program, directed CSP’s Make a Difference Day project. CSP’s Mobile Health Van also has traveled to Portland to provide health services for community residents as well as the migrant population, she says.

“This opens the doors to a new underserved population that we can help,” Schell says.

Shaw says ComCorps is looking for additional volunteers and support. Anyone interested in helping with the Portland community center can contact Shaw via e-mail at kerri@appalachianutrition.net.