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Finding Her Place - Lifetime Legacies & Lunch, part 7
Rae Gravley's series from North Park continues...
A popular weekly activity sponsored by the North Park Friendship House is a women’s Bible study group. The group and the studies change as people move in and out. One woman who was invited to come says she was initially very wary of Bible study and Christians. When she finally came to the group, she sat quietly for a while and just observed. Eventually, she says she realized that not all Christians are “crazy” and that she could perhaps even “be” one and take part in the group. When she decided to be baptized, she wanted the leader of the Bible study group to baptize her. “You were the one who told me about Jesus, so you should be the one to baptize me. I want to be like you all,” she said. Now she leads a group in her home and loves the relationships she has with her neighbors.
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Rae Gravley volunteers for CCC as a Story Chronicler. This collection of stories from North Park is updated here each Wednesday morning.
What A Welcome! - Lifetime Legacies & Lunch, part 6
Danyel Rogers, North Park Friendship House Coordinator, likes to jog early in the morning. Even before the sun comes up, she will be on the street, giving it her best. On one such morning she surprised a mother and her children waiting at the bus stop. The kids screamed when they were face to face, without warning, with a tall bond-haired stranger. Afraid they would think she was crazy, she went by their home later in the day to introduce herself and apologize for scaring the kids. Brenda, the mom, says it was the best day of her life. At the time, she was newly divorced with three kids and lots of heartache. She says the Friendship House and her new friends gave her focus and hope and provided a safe place for her children when she needed a break. “It means the most to me,” she says. “We even got to meeting Representative Susan King at one of the CCC events, and now my daughters know that they can be anything they want to be. Opportunities the Friendship House provides open all kinds of doors for me and my children. I am part Hispanic and Indian, and we eat most of our food with our fingers, like burritos and such. However, when we were invited to the HSU dinner theater, I spent weeks preparing my children to eat with good manners and to be polite. It was the first time we had eaten with a white tablecloth and fancy dishes and got to see a real ‘Broadway’ play. We dressed up and it was a great experience. It is still a highlight for me and my children, and it was free! It was the most wonderful night.” Brenda hopes to one day be a writer and already has the books she’ll write in mind. She knows she can do it!
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Rae Gravley volunteers as CCC's Story Chronicler. This collection of stories from North Park is an ongoing series updated each Wednesday morning.
The First of Many - Lifetime Legacies & Lunch, part 5
Rae Gravley's series continues with a first day visitor
Patri Bailey, mother of three and the first official neighborhood visitor to the North Park Friendship House during its original open house in 2004, has been in the neighborhood for over eight years. She inherited her home from her parents and loves the quiet; she was looking for an outlet for her homeschooled children. The Friendship House provides just that. She knows her children are safe and being engaged in wholesome activities. Now quite involved with the North Park Friendship House, she writes articles for its newsletter.
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Rae Gravley volunteers as CCC's Story Chronicler. This collection of stories from North Park is added to each Wednesday morning.
Cowboy Serenade - Lifetime Legacies & Lunch, part 4
Rae Gravley's collection of North Park stories continues with the Cowboy Band
Several other North Park neighbors added to the luncheon storytelling. Mac and Mabel Adkins, married 63 years, had spent most of their lives in the neighborhood. Mabel had come with the J.C. White family in 1909 in a covered wagon when she was fifteen months old. She attended the North Park school and Abilene High. The Adkins’ roots run deep and strong in the neighborhood. They grew their own food, had cows, took the street car to Abilene High, and later she laundered the shirts for the members of the cowboy band. One, after a gentle complaint to the band about her 6:00AM practices, the Adkins were serenaded by the band members attired in shorts and cowboy boots. Mabel says it was and is a good life! Mac, Mabel’s quiet husband, father of their four children and grandfather of many, passed the storytelling on to others in the room. He did grin when someone told on him riding his bicycle a total of 8,000 miles—and just around the streets of the neighborhood. “And it’s not a fancy bike; it’s one that is hard to ride!” someone in the room added.
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Rae Gravley volunteers as CCC's Story Chronicler. This collection of stories from North Park is added to each Wednesday morning.
School History - Lifetime Legacies & Lunch, part 3
Rae Gravley's series continues in the North Park neighborhood
According to historical documents, the county school, grades one through eight, taught much more than reading, writing and arithmetic. As of 1950, the girls had won first place and the boys won second place in basketball. That year there were also winners in choral singing, music appreciation, number sense, storytelling, declamation, ready writing, spelling, softball, and track and field. American Legion awards, as well as Valedictorian, Salutatorian and Honor Boy awards were presented. At that time the school employed twenty-two teachers, two with Master’s Degrees! Eighteen classrooms were used to teach a top enrollment of 640 students. Classroom size ranged from twenty-eight to as many as fifty-one students at a time. Two additional classrooms would have helped, and they were hoping to hire two new teachers for the next fall term. North Park Elementary eventually became incorporated into Abilene Independent School District and was later named Ben Milam Elementary. Students continued their education at Abilene High School, located at that time in the Lincoln Middle School Building on North First Street.
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Rae Gravley volunteers as CCC's Story Chronicler. This collection of stories from North Park is added to each Wednesday morning.
Queen Mary Jo - Lifetime Legacies & Lunch, part 2
Rae Gravley's series continues with "Queen Mary Jo"
One of my favorite storytellers was Mrs. Mary Jo Brown. She grew up in the neighborhood when all the children went to the “county school”. Her daddy was on the school board and she spent many happy hours biking and skating with the girls in the neighborhood, and under the portico at the Olsen House, sitting in the backseat of a 1928 Packard Touring Car. (That’s a convertible, according to Mary Jo.) She and her girlfriends were playing “queen contestants”, and her little brother was their chauffer. They only got out of the car when a real tornado alert sent them to home and shelter.
Because Mrs. Brown showed some real entrepreneurial spirit and convinced her father’s patrons at the barber shop to vote for her, she won the real queen contest in her eighth grade year; winners were the ones who collected the most money or votes for the school. She says she felt like Cinderella, and it was the first time she was given red roses. In her telling I could see the pride and joy of being queen, even if it was just a school fundraiser.
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Rae Gravley volunteers as CCC's Story Chronicler. This collection of stories from the North Park neighborhood has added stories each Wednesday morning.
Lifetime Legacies & Lunch I
Rae Gravley introduces a series of stories from the North Park neighborhood.
I was recently invited to lunch at the North Park Friendship House on Hickory Street, after the groundbreaking ceremony for Connecting Caring Communities’ newest project—a new Friendship House, a neighborhood park and playground and a community of ten houses, all on the old site of the North Park County School, later renamed Ben Milam Elementary School. The cool breezy weather and sweetly singing birds provided a perfect morning for honoring the hard work of so many. Just down the street at the current North Park Friendship House more than fifty friends and neighbors gathered to enjoy way too much home-cooked and baked food and to reminisce by telling stories about life in the old neighborhood.
Many of those in attendance had lived all or most of their lives in the very same neighborhood. Many inherited homes from parents or returned to take care of elderly parents and loved the quiet, yet open neighborhood just north of Hardin-Simmons University. Many of those present were connected in some way with the HSU Cowboy Band, the old Olsen House now being repurposed, and with former and present students of HSU. Many had wonderful memories of the old days when North Park County School and later Milam Elementary School was the hub of the neighborhood. Sitting quietly, writing as fast as I could, I listened to the stories of the lives of the people present and realized I was in a special place, an almost sacred setting. They talked of baptism and Bible studies, but I wasn’t thinking about that at all. I was thinking that where two or more are gathered, there will be stories to tell!
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Rae Gravley volunteers as the CCC Story Chronicler. The Lifetime Legacies & Lunch series will add a new story each week telling the stories of the North Park neighborhood and its residents.
Beyond Words
CCC Story Chronicler Rae Gravley begins with this story about the CCC Experience.
“Just what is Connecting Caring Communities?”I asked after deciding to be a CCC Can-Do Volunteer. So, I bake cookies and deliver them--where? I paint what? I tutor…but why? What’s the big picture of CCC?
To be honest, I am still a bit fuzzy on all the details, but I am getting it, little by little each time I hear a CCC story or see CCC in action. Changing a city neighborhood by neighborhood-- home by home, building friendships and creating lasting relationships the old fashioned way—face to face and heart to heart—that is the mission of CCC. It is love in action, at its most practical and humble best. It is caring and just being there when needed. It’s hard to put that in a snappy or pithy slogan. Connecting Caring Communities uses the simple concept of relationship-building to create a sense of connection and community. Now I get it! So I wear my “We Care Abilene” pin, since I am now part of the Caring Team and—I think I get it!
Check out the CCC website at www.wecareabilene.org and find out how you can be a part of making a difference in Abilene. Through the stories and pictures of relationships built and lives changed, you too will begin to get it!
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Rae Gravley is sharing her CAN-DO writing skills and spirit by being CCC’s official Story Chronicler. Look for her stories on the web and in upcoming newsletters. Thanks to Rae’s willingness to do what she loves to do for CCC, more and more folks will begin to get it as they read her amazing stories of caring and connecting. Thanks, Rae!
Memorial Day Block Party Time!
It's time to plan and register for your 2009 Memorial Day Block Party!
For the third year, Connecting Caring Communities is organizing block parties throughout our city. If you haven't hosted a party before, make plans to do so this weekend.
Anytime during Memorial Day weekend ask your neighbors over for some ice cream, a cook-out or simply some coffee or smoothies-- or just to play a game or chat. The ideas are endless. Download our Block Party Toolkit to help with details for your party. The toolkit includes customizable invitations, a planning checklist and more.
The first twelve hosts to register your block party will receive a free tree compliments of Keep Abilene Beautiful. Register your block party today!
Cleaning up in Holiday Hills
Volunteers and neighbors worked together to for a neighborhood clean-up in Holiday Hills.
Connecting Caring Communities' newest staff member, Bro. Rob, has been meeting and motivating neighbors in Holiday Hills for several months now. On Saturday, April 25, he organized a neighborhood clean-up for the neighborhood. With the help of volunteers-- including the Carver Youth Council -- the neighbors in Holiday Hills were able to get some clean streets, yards and have their trash hauled away for free.
Better yet, many new relationships were formed, some hope restored and connections made with and between neighbors-- and that's what community renewal is all about.
As with all our neighborhood clean-ups, CCC is grateful to the city staff from Solid Waste Services who spent the morning picking up and helping neighbors as well. Special thanks to Eliseo and his crew at this clean-up.