The new Baptist Town Community Center officially opened Wednesday and kicked off a summer full of programs.
After a year of preparations, which included extensive renovations to the building and plenty of meetings to prepare programming, the community center is finally open at 210 McCain St.
Wednesday evening, members of the community center’s board served refreshments and offered chances to sign up for classes. So far, a Zumba exercise class, kids’ art classes, a carpentry class, resume workshops and movie nights are planned for June and July at the center.
The classes are all free and open to anyone, including those living outside the Baptist Town neighborhood.
Alice Leflore, a Baptist Town resident and member of the board for the new center, said she hoped it could help bring the community closer together and draw back former residents for visits.
“The pride that we once had in this community — we want to bring that back,” Leflore said.
Ultimately, the community center will be available for neighborhood events and rentals, Leflore said. Plans call for a full complement of programs, including after-school tutoring, classes, community events and eventually a computer lab for children.
“We have the vision of this continuing on and becoming a self-sustaining center,” Leflore said.
A center for the economically impoverished community has been in the works for years, beginning when the cast and crew of the film “The Help” — which filmed extensively in the neighborhood in 2010 — left behind seed funds for the project.
Various delays put the project on hold before the current building, a former day care center, was purchased last year. Extensive renovations to the property — including a new wheelchair ramp, a fresh paint job and completely new bathrooms — had to be completed before the center officially opened on Wednesday.
Emily Roush-Elliott, an architecture fellow who has been working in Baptist Town, said she was pleased to see the programs get off the ground at the community center and hoped it would become a vital hub in the neighborhood.
“I’m excited for it to be a place to come for opportunities,” Roush-Elliott said. “We want it to be alive.”
Longtime Baptist Town businessman Sylvester Hoover, who was checking out the newly opened center Wednesday evening, said the opening was a positive development for the entire community.
Hoover, who runs a grocery store nearby and also gives blues and historical tours of the Delta, said he hoped to teach local history classes at the center and also hoped music lessons might one day be available for neighborhood kids.
“It’s good for the neighborhood,” he said. “I really think it’ll work.”
• Contact Bryn Stole at 581-7235 or bstole@gwcommonwealth.com.
