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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.
News for the week of Dec. 13 – Dec. 18
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