LeMoyne Community Center celebrates 65th anniversary
Courtesy of LeMoyne Community Center
LeMoyne Community Center Executive Director Linda Harris, back, accompanied children to a Science Technology Engineering and Math program in Washington. The center is planning to launch a STEAM program, where children can participate in a variety of hands-on STEAM activities.
Karen Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Linda Harris, LeMoyne Community Center executive director, is continuing the center’s legacy of providing educational and social opportunities for youth, strengthening family life and developing better neighborhoods. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the center is providing a variety of programs, including an after-school homework program.
Courtesy of LeMoyne Community Center
The LeMoyne Community Center is celebrating its 65th anniversary. The center offers several programs, including a Homework & More after-school homework program.
Courtesy of LeMoyne Community Center
The LeMoyne Community Center is celebrating 65 years of serving children and adults in the community. On Nov. 30, 1956, the center held a dedication that was attended by Jackie Robinson.
When the LeMoyne Community Center was dedicated on Nov. 30, 1956 – an event that Jackie Robinson, the first Black Major League Baseball player, attended – it served as a social and educational haven for the Black community.
It was the site where children, women and men gathered for cotillions, etiquette classes, knitting classes, movies, social clubs, story time, and other events.
And the LeMoyne Center housed a swimming pool, the only place where Black people were allowed to swim because Washington Park pool was segregated for whites only.
Sixty-five years later, the LeMoyne Center continues to be a thriving community center, especially for children in Washington.
“That’s what the center has been about for all of these years, service to the community. It has been 65 years, and we’re still going strong here, and still trying to hold onto that legacy of serving the community, after all this time,” said executive director Linda Harris. “The center, for decades, has brought people together. I’m always amazed at the people I talk to that were here years ago, who came to the center all the time, and the stories they tell, the things they remember. It’s fun and it’s humbling to hear how much the center meant to people.”
The LeMoyne Community Center’s history predates the 65th anniversary.
The center sits on a portion of land owned by a carriage maker, Robert R. Forrest, who had a love for the community and let children play on his property.
In the 1920s, Reuben W. Wasler Jr., one of Washington County’s first police officers of color, began gathering children for recreation and classes in the nearby Wright Memorial Church.
In 1930, the Neighborhood House Association, which founded the Brownson House, opened an NHA group in the Wright Church.
Later, the Forrest estate gave use of Forrest’s home to the NHA group to hold children’s activities.
It was in 1952 that the center was named in honor of Dr. Francis Julius LeMoyne, a local physician and abolitionist who built the first crematory in the United States and founded Washington’s first public library.
In the 1970s, the center split from the NHA to become an independent community center. The center flourished through the early 1990s, but then fell into disrepair, a result of lack of funding and other issues.
In 2004, fire gutted the building and a water main break caused further damage, and the center remained closed and boarded up.
Then, Joyce Ellis happened.
“Fast forward to 2007, and here comes Joyce Ellis, an energetic visionary who essentially brought the center into the 21st century,” said Harris, who joined Ellis in 2008 as a volunteer. “I got to work with her, to help bring her vision to fruition, which was absolutely wonderful.”
Harris, who had recently retired from the state Department of Corrections, where she served as deputy superintendent of SCI-Fayette, had her doubts that the LeMoyne Center could return to its mission of inspiring youth, strengthening family life, and developing better neighborhoods.
“When I met Joyce, there was nothing here. I was looking to give back to the community and wanted to volunteer somewhere. My son had played basketball at the LeMoyne Center, so I said, ‘OK, I’ll go there,'” recalled Harris. “We decided to meet (at the center) and I’m looking around, and there’s nothing going on here, no programs, nothing. It was just her, and she talked about her vision for the center, all of the things she was going to do, and I’m thinking, ‘Yeah, lady, you don’t have anything.'”
After that initial meeting, Harris didn’t plan to volunteer at the center. But Ellis, who gave up her 27-year career as a dance instructor and invested her life savings in the center, called her and continued to share plans.
“And the more she talked about her vision and her ideas, the more I thought, ‘OK, this just might work.'”
And it did.
Among the programs offered are Camp Challenge, a summer school program; Homework & More, an after-school program that currently serves about 80 children; the Nutrafit Feeding program that serves meals daily throughout the summer to between 600 and 800 children in almost 20 locations around Washington County; Coco’s Christmas, which provides Christmas presents to families experiencing financial hardship; and the American Girl Book Club, a book club for girls from third grade and up based on the American Girl historical book series.
The center also offers a variety of enrichment classes and hosts a wide range of events.
LeMoyne Center’s renovated gymnasium, which features a new floor and bleachers, and holds about 200 people, was recently completed. Ellis died from cancer in December 2020, before the renovations were finished.
Harris said there are plans to provide more activities for both children and adults, including STEAM classes and drug and alcohol prevention programs.
“The world is full of opportunities, and we want them to take advantage of those opportunities,” said Harris.
Harris feels a responsibility to carry on the legacy established by Ellis and the center’s other leaders – among them, Miss Pearle Harris, a beloved elementary schoolteacher who tutored children at the Forrest House, Astra Lloyd and Johnnie Yandell.
“It has been a legacy of generations. The goal is to keep it going, to keep the center thriving, to grow even bigger, to do more for the community,” said Harris. “I want to continue that tradition that I hear so many people talk about.”
Harris said she also wants the LeMoyne Center to be a place where children create memories and have positive experiences.
For more than a decade, Harris has coordinated the American Girl Book Club, which culminates with a trip to a city where the American Girl story is set.
Over the years, the club has visited places including Santa Fe., N.M., Detroit, Mich., Cape May, N.J., and New York City.
“I love hearing from some of my girls, who are now women with kids of their own, saying, ‘Miss Linda, I remember when we went there, or when we visited there.’ I love hearing them tell me, ‘I remember that it was the first time was on a plane, or the first time I was on a train.’ That’s what the center is about, trying to establish some firsts,” Harris said.
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the center – it needs more volunteers, and for the second year, Coco’s Christmas is canceled – but Harris, along with staff and volunteers, continue to serve children and the community.
Harris also acknowledged the efforts of everyone who has helped.
“I’d like to thank the center staff, volunteers, and board of directors for believing in the dream of what can be, and remaining steadfast even in the face of adversity,” said Harris. “And I would especially like to thank the community for their continued support of the center and our mission. I truly believe we’re all in this together.”