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WWC Service Day Aug. 24 to focus on West End/Clingman area
Three years ago, the focus of Warren Wilson College's Service Day was extensive cleanup and landscaping in and around the French Broad River Park in West Asheville. This year, on Aug. 24, the work is moving to the east side of the French Broad a bit downstream, to the West End/Clingman Avenue neighborhood high above the mighty river.
Several hundred Warren Wilson students, faculty and staff will have plenty of help this year through a major collaboration with Quality Forward, Mountain Housing Opportunities and the community organization WECAN (West End/Clingman Avenue Neighborhood). WECAN encompasses an economically and racially diverse area that includes one of the oldest riverfront communities in Asheville.
The projects planned on Service Day are both varied and extensive, ranging from rebuilding a stone wall at Haywood Street United Methodist Church to landscaping to working on a community garden. Students will work in groups of 15, supervised by peer group leaders, Warren Wilson staff and other professionals.
"Service is at the core of Warren Wilson College's value and mission," President Doug Orr said, "and it is always gratifying to see our students begin their college careers during Orientation Week by extending a hand to the community. They always comment that they receive as much as they give."
West End/Clingman began coming into its own as a neighborhood in the late 19th century, as many people moved from surrounding farms to work in mills located near the river and rail yard. A large employer was the C.E. Graham Manufacturing Co., built in 1887 and later known as the Asheville Cotton Mill. Though many residents moved out of the area when the mill closed in 1949, some of the mill workers and their descendants still live there. Years later, the construction of Interstate 240 took a sizable chunk of the old neighborhood.
The loss of jobs and people started a gradual decline in the area, which over the years has been plagued by crime and neglect. Then in 1996, the City of Asheville planning department developed the West End/Clingman Avenue Neighborhood Plan in an effort to spark the area's physical and economic revitalization. The plan has helped guide home construction and restoration, community organization and infrastructure improvement.
Several houses in the area have been built or refurbished by Mountain Housing Opportunities, which has received awards from the N.C. Chapter of the American Planning Association and Smart Growth Partners of Western North Carolina for its work in the area. A private developer, the Pullarium Redevelopment Group, also has begun construction of new homes on the west side of the neighborhood, and is working to restore existing buildings, develop parks and build mixed-use structures that are compatible with the neighborhood's historic character. WECAN, the neighborhood association, has been involved in numerous activities, including dumpsite cleanups, beautification plantings and efforts to reduce crime in the neighborhood.
"One reason we are so excited to work on this project is the ability to work with a strong neighborhood association," said Carolyn Wallace, service-learning director at Warren Wilson College. "Over the past few years residents have come together to form an association that has been able to maintain their diversity and work together well."
Each August the Service Day is part of Orientation Week for new students at Warren Wilson College. For the past five years Service Day has focused on one site, taking students to the French Broad, the Mountain Area Child and Family Center in Swannanoa, and twice to the village of Chimney Rock. Service Day also serves as an introduction to the college's 40-year-old service-learning program, in which each undergraduate works a minimum of 100 service hours as a graduation requirement.
"One of the things I am hoping that Warren Wilson students learn from the service-learning program," Wallace said, "is that they really can change the world - whether one child, one river, one neighborhood or one idea at a time. The project is a good example of the kind of energy and spirit we are hoping to grow in all our students."