Supporters to Reconstruct the Gym want to save former school facility in East Arcadia

EAST ARCADIA — Community members in East Arcadia are working toward breathing new life into the gymnasium near the senior center.

The campus, once used by Bladen Community College, hosts multiple buildings in the space. In addition to the gym’s history, the history of the senior center as a Rosenwald School is of equal importance.

“My daughter Ann Troy started working towards forming a group,” said Lana Carter. “I have been working on that gym for years.”

Troy ended up starting “Supporters to Reconstruct the Gym” as part of the East Arcadia Restoration Committee. That involved Troy, Tiffany Freeman, Rudy Freeman and Perry Blanks Jr., said Troy.

“We want to put the gym back in its original shape,” said Lillian Graham, who serves on the Town Council in East Arcadia.

Carter said the gym has been used for multiple events over the years, and that with reopening there are hopes for youth programs, seniors, church and family reunions, and pageants. As the largest venue in the area, she said it has been a center element to the community for decades.

“It has had a whole lot more significance than just a building,” Graham said. “It’s been very important.”

It’s been closed since the summer of 2009. The inside and outside are both aged, and storms have taken their toll.

“Weather has messed up that building,” she said. “There have been tornadoes and hurricanes, and it’s almost 100 years old, too.”

Carter said that the town had stopped working on it, as well.

“I refused to let it go,” she said.

She said that since her health has started to decline, her daughter decided she was ready to step up to the challenge.

“She said that she wanted to know how to get the gym together,” said Carter. “I told Ann that I know a lot of stuff, and resources to tap into, like grants and fundraising.

“I am giving all this to God.”

Carter said about two and half years ago the revitalization was started, and that both Troy and Carter knew that they couldn’t do anything without the town’s permission. So they started the dialogue.

“I knew we had to at least do what we needed to save the gym,” Carter said.

With this came involvement of more people, like Jeff Adolphsen with the State Historic Preservation Office and Hannah Beckman, a regional director at the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

“We had an engineer come and tell us that the building was still structurally sound,” Troy said. “We talked with a carpenter to see what it would cost to cover the building to keep the water out.”

The plan is to get the building rebranded into a multipurpose building, but also to get recognition for the building on the campus that now houses the senior center. That building is a Rosenwald School.

Rosenwald Schools were pivotal catalyst in black education in the South, and Carter said that it needs to be on the National Register of Historical Places because of its “very historical value for black education.” Other Rosenwald Schools in the county existed close to Clarkton, on Porterville School Road, and in Elizabethtown where Paul R. Brown Leadership Academy now educates students in grades 6-12.

“We asked David Richardson, with the Lumber River Council of Governments, to team up and help with this,” Carter said.

Graham has many fond memories of the school, which was comprised of four main classrooms. Now some of them are broken into other rooms with smaller spaces, and there is a kitchen. One of the rooms is set up as a classroom space for learning opportunities.

They’ve worked on obtaining money through hurricane relief grants.

”With the coronavirus we haven’t been able to fundraise,” Troy said. “But we are not giving up. With this grant we didn’t want to miss the opportunity or not try. We don’t have anything in our community. It’s a large place and it would hold a lot of people, especially for events.”

Troy said they are in a waiting game, and that the repairs are “much needed and deserved.” She said that with the repairs she hopes that there will be other money for programs.