A newsmaker you should know: Washington woman uses own energy to revive LeMoyne center
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When Joyce Ellis was named executive director of the Le-Moyne Community Center in Washington in 2007, the title was a bit misleading.
"I became executive director of nothing," she said.
For three years, the facility had been closed and empty with a leaky roof, warped floors and boarded-up windows from previous fire and water damage.
When she saw that the recreational center of her youth had become "a blight on the community," she said she used some of her own ideas and money to try to bring it back to life.
She rallied others to donate time and materials to repair roofing, replace carpeting and windows, paint walls and complete other work prior to an open house in 2007.
"People said it gave them a new perspective, and they began navigating toward the community instead of avoiding it," Ms. Ellis said.
Today, the center, at 200 N. Forest Ave., is thriving. Overseen by a board of directors that appointed her, it has a budget slightly less than $300,000.Primary sources of funding include grants from private family and community foundations.
Lemoyne's free, after-school program attracts about 70 students daily, while its Camp Challenge Summer Program has more than 200 youths on its roster who are challenged "to do something different, like rugby, lacrosse and golf," Ms. Ellis noted.
They also learn about hygiene, writing resumes, how to dress, preparing for a job interview and more.
And field trips from the center are more than a day at the beach.
"Before we go to, say, the aviary, they have to find out what birds are indigenous to our area ... that also means learning what 'indigenous' means," Ms. Ellis said.
Ms. Ellis, who is also a dance instructor and motivational speaker, noted that participants in the center's programs are predominantly underserved African-American children from low-income families.
"I want to level the playing field. I tell kids 'I will get you there, but you have to maintain it, meaning you have to act right,' " she said.
Despite partnering with many organizations, the center operates independently in Washington County.
The center, built in 1956 around a swimming pool where African-Americans swam, was for all children, regardless of race or economic status, with programs grounded in education.
As a young child, Ms. Ellis swam in the center pool. At home, she entertained family members on birthdays with her one-woman comedy skits, singing and dancing.
At age 16, she taught gymnastics and dance to boys and girls on the basketball court sidelines at the center.
" 'Can you just stop the ball for an hour?' I would ask because we were hearing the ball bounce and shoes screeching and having the ball hit us," she recalled.
"I left with a headache every night."
After a couple of years, the venue's obstacles proved too much, leading her to leave and found the Joyce Ellis Dancers, which she operated over the next three decades.
During the 1990s, as funding sources dried up, the center began to lose its educational programs until all that remained was basketball.
In 2004, a fire of undetermined nature gutted the main community center facility, while a water main break two months later further damaged it.
For the next years it sat broken and boarded up.
"Then I talked to God; he put programs in my head, like 'Homework and More' as a way to get kids engaged in history and to start reading," Ms. Ellis said.
The center also offers a six-week track and field program and intergenerational programs like cooking class, horticulture, health programs, robotics, tai chi and an adult education program.
"I trusted that God would show me the way, and he has," she said.
Ms. Ellis hopes to set the children on the right path in life with a philosophy akin to that which drove her as a dance instructor.
"I take someone who does not know how to dance and turn them into dancers.
"All they need is desire and I can make them dance," she said.
First Published February 9, 2012 12:00 am
