Senior center to open in Scrabble School

Just seven months after its groundbreaking ceremony, the doors of the new Scrabble School senior center will officially open Saturday afternoon.

The new facility was once Scrabble School, an all-black school located in Rappahannock County. The school served students in Woodville, Sperryville, Slate Mills, Peola Mills and surrounding areas. It opened in 1921 and closed in 1968 at the height of the Civil Rights movement.

Saturday’s ceremony starts at 1 p.m.

“It’s been a long time coming,” said Rappahannock County Administrator John McCarthy, who helped coordinate the project. “It’s a remarkable success story.”

McCarthy said the county acquired the property in 1986 and began contemplating what to do with it. Two years ago, Scrabble School alumni and county officials came up with an idea to preserve the school while putting it to good use.

According to project director Susanna Spencer, 90 percent of the center’s clients receive low-to-moderate income. So far, there are 25 on-site clients and about 30 at home.

“This is really going to be the first time (senior citizens) will have a place of their own,” Spencer said. “It was a monumental effort on behalf of volunteers and alumni to raise the money to push to have it restored. We also hope it will be a focal point of the community.”

The Rappahannock County-owned center will provide senior citizens with hot meals four days a week, nutritional support, medical screenings, recreational programs and social activities.

The center is also the local distribution site for the Blue Ridge Food Bank where volunteers collect, organize and deliver food monthly to about 30 low-income families.
Invited guests include: Rappahannock-Rapidan Community Services Board and Area Agency on Aging representatives, Rappahannock County officials, University of Virginia professors and a representative from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

David Deutsch, a great grandson of Julius Rosenwald, is also expected to attend Saturday’s ceremony. With Rosenwald’s monetary donations, more than 5,300 black schools were built in the South between 1912 and 1932. The purpose of the Rosenwald rural school building program was to help “improve the quality of public education for African Americans” during the 20th century.

Additionally, Spencer hopes that the Heritage Center will be open sometime next year. It would feature both permanent and rotating displays with a curator giving tours four times a year.

“Opening the Heritage Center is an opportunity to tell the story of African Americans in Rappahannock County,” Spencer added.

She also added that the restoration would not have happened without the support of Rappahannock County as well as grants from a Community Development Block Grant, the Lowe’s Charitable and Educational Foundation through the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Virginia Department for Historic Resources and numerous other state and private donors.

The entire cost of the renovations totaled $550,000, according to McCarthy.