Legacy Center at Scarborough Nursery School in Durham, NC.
This Legacy Center Leadership project painted the inside of the school, removed outdated playground equipment, power washed outside of building and installed a new sign. It was an extreme giver project from Legacy Center Leadership.
| April 17, 2004 | |
TRIANGLE Scarborough Nursery School
Nursery school gets a hand
Author: Benjamin Niolet; Staff Writer
DURHAM — Four-year-old Latoni Cruse took a break from building a Lego tower and leaned in close, covering her mouth so the others couldn’t hear.
“Our school’s being painted,” she said. “I want to see pretty colors on it.”
Latoni had in mind red, white or even green. When she comes back to Scarborough Nursery School after the weekend, she’ll actually see a color called “purple lace” on the walls.
Latoni and her excitable, pint-sized classmates attend one of Durham’s oldest nursery schools. Scarborough was established in 1925 to serve black families. The children seem to enjoy school and its tasks of reciting the alphabet, painting, playing in a sandbox or with a classroom turtle named Rusty. But their building needs work.
Boards are rotting. The paint in the cafeteria and indoor playroom is teal and dirty. The toddler playground equipment outside looks as if it has been played on by too many children over too many years. So a group of volunteers are spending this weekend sprucing up the place, hoping to surprise and delight the children when they return.
“I guess Monday what I really see is the excitement of the students, the teachers, the staff,” said Carl McMillon, chairman of the board for the school.
McMillon is also involved in a program from the Legacy Center in Morrisville. The center, which offers courses in leadership, among other topics, has a leadership team that coordinated the weekend of work.
By Friday afternoon, volunteers had come from Virginia, Rocky Mount and Asheville.
Alphonso Sumler, a home builder from Rocky Mount, tapped finishing nails into boards on the back patio. Sumler had never heard of the Scarborough school, but he heard about the chance to volunteer through his church.
“If I can lend a helping hand, volunteer work, what you give will be given back to you,” Sumler said.
The nursery was established by John Scarborough Sr., founder of the well-known Durham funeral home. Scarborough observed through his business that in many homes in Durham, children were been looked after by older children.
The school, set up as nonprofit, began operating in 1925. It moved to its current downtown location on Queen Street in the early to mid-1970s, McMillon said. The building’s exterior has been worked on probably once since then, he said.
Today the school has about 80 students, ranging in age from 18 months to 5 years old. The school is funded by tuition, the Scarborough Foundation, the state Division of Social Services and the Triangle United Way of Greater Durham.
Linda Preston, a librarian from Asheville who belongs to the leadership group, swept dirt and dust from the paved walk surrounded the school Friday. Preston had little specks of paint on her cheeks, a holdover from her morning duties of scraping.
“It’s a wonderful thing,” Preston said. “You can see how it will benefit children.”
Reprinted with Permission Raleigh News and Observer