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WWC Service Day Aug. 24 to focus on Emma Family Resource Center
The Emma community in west Asheville has seen tremendous change over the past several years. No doubt it will see even more on Aug. 24, when the Emma Family Resource Center will be the focus of Warren Wilson College's annual Service Day.
Several hundred WWC students, faculty and staff will work on various projects enhancing the efforts of the center, which delivers a range of services to families living in the Emma community. Among the projects are work on a nature trail at Emma Elementary School; creation of new community garden sites including a terraced garden; and painting and other work on a triplewide trailer from Roberson High School that will soon house the center, located next to Emma school. On one side of the trailer a mural will be painted featuring a map of the Emma community.
Warren Wilson students will work in groups of about 15, supervised by peer group leaders, WWC staff and other professionals.
"Service is at the core of Warren Wilson College's values and mission," President Doug Orr says, "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." Adds Carolyn Wallace, WWC service-learning director: "Service Day helps our students get a good start in being connected to the community."
In recent years the Emma community has been transformed by an influx of immigrants, including many newcomers who are Slav, Moldovan, Ukrainian or Latino. Mobile home parks have sprouted where crops once grew in fields. Yet Emma has few of the amenities - parks or other public spaces, library or even sidewalks - that can foster a stronger sense of community.
"This is like an invisible community - the community that everyone forgot," says Debby Genz, coordinator of Emma Family Resource Center. "Many people here are scrapping for survival. This [Service Day] says, `People care about you, you are important.' It will be such a visible boost to the community."
Among other services, the center provides parenting support and resources, an emergency food bank and a free clinic. The center is a community partnership among Children First of Buncombe County, Mission St. Joseph's Health System, Buncombe County Department of Social Services and other organizations and individuals.
"Warren Wilson College, through Service Day, is giving a gift to Children First of Buncombe County," says Children First Executive Director Liz Huesemann, "but above all to the children and families of the Emma community. The mission of Children First is to improve children's lives through collaboration. Service Day, at the Emma Family Resource Center, is truly this."
Service Day is part of Orientation Week each August for new students at Warren Wilson College. For the past six years Service Day has focused on one site, three times taking students to the west Asheville area. The day also serves as an introduction to the college's 40-year-old service-learning program, in which each undergraduate student works a minimum of 100 service hours as a graduation requirement. During the 2001-02 academic year, WWC students gave more than 22,600 hours of service to community.