Resource restoration

Nov. 26—BLUEFIELD — The Wade Center has been caring for elementary school age children since 2005, but in that time, there has not been many updates to the facility until now.

Executive director Betty Brainerd and Financial Administrative Assistant Karen Harvey have been working hard to find what needs fixed along with securing funding for those projects.

They've gotten several done in the past two years, but there is still more to come.

The center is an after-school program for at-risk kids from grades first through fifth.

"Here, we help with homework, the kids do weekly devotions, art classes, and many other things, and our goal is to try to help them develop into productive people," said Harvey.

Kids are not charged to attend the program, so a lot of the funding they do goes to paying for the services the kids enjoy.

"We have limited resources, so we feel like they should be our main focus," said Harvey.

While the renovations have been extensive, it has not interfered with the after-school program much.

"They work when the kids aren't here, but we did not have a summer program in 2021, and that's when the classrooms were done," said Harvey. "We've pretty much been going along with the program the whole time."

The floor replacements were one of the first major projects to be completed at the center.

"The Community Foundation of the Virginias gave us a grant to tear up the carpet and replace it with new water proof lament flooring," said Harvey. "We did three classrooms first."

While getting the new flooring put in, they also replaced the carpet in the small meeting area with brand new carpet.

"These carpets were donated by Family Carpet because they did all the work in the classrooms, so they wanted to do something too," Harvey said.

They have also repainted most of the walls with the help of the mission teams.

The third floor auditorium has been the project they have been working on recently, and they think it is one of the most important ones because of how much time they spend in there with the students.

They are still trying to get all the grants they need for all of the projects they plan to do in there.

"What we did actually is we wrote one grant for the whole thing, and they turned us down," said Harvey. "So, we started with the windows, we made what we call memorial gifts, so we offered for $2,000 to memorialize someone with the windows."

All the windows on the third floor have been replaced now, and they have a plaque for the memorialization of the windows.

Also in the third floor, they have had the steps to their stage redone and a handle added to them.

"The auditorium, we've got repairs to the walls, painting, and then we'll get the new flooring," Harvey said. "We got a grant for that from the county commissioners."

The Mercer County Commission also granted them funding to redo the center's cafeteria.

The center has also added awnings to the doors, and the center's maintenance man, Charlie, repainted the doors.

"They were dingy, but we got awnings over the doors now too for when it rains or snows, that way the kids have a little bit of extra protection," Harvey said.

They have also gotten another grant to build bathrooms on the playground along with new fencing around it with funding from the Shott Foundation.

"We already have a contractor to build the bathrooms because right now if someone has to go, they have to come all the way up here in the main building," said Harvey.

Harvey also said that their parking lot was recently redone because the city of Bluefield had to tear it up, so they fixed it.

The Wade Center has not only worked to get grants to fix the proper, but also to add more educational opportunities.

"We received grants from Princeton Hospital and some others to get 3D printers, virtual reality headsets, all of the programming for the printers, and some more computer stuff that we needed," said Harvey.

She said those were a great addition to the center because it can teach the kids so many different things.

"We found that the little kids can use it to do shapes, colors, letters, and things like that with the virtual reality," Harvey said. "The 3D printers are for the older kids. They have to make a program to design something and figure out all the elements, all the math, so it's a really good exercise for them."

The computer work stations the center are relatively new still, but they did receive them before COVID struck and were able to do their best to help people in the community during that time.

"When COVID was here and everybody was virtual, we opened our computer lab to anyone in Mercer County who needed a computer for virtual reality or internet to do their homework," said Harvey. "Seventy percent of the homes here don't have internet, so we opened it up."

She added, "Now, our kids came first, and we wanted outside people to make appointments to use it that way we knew when they'd be here; but we never had any scheduling issues."

The work stations for the computers were donated by the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis.

"We have a relationship with a church there, and they do a lot of things for us here," said Harvey.

While students have been attending the Wade Center's after-school program for almost 20 years, the updates did not really begin until Brainerd took over and Harvey came in to work with funds.

"When Betty got here in the summer of 2020 and I got here in July of the same year, that's when changes started to happen," said Harvey. "Basically, Betty came in and said 'I don't like that,' to a few things, and I would look for a foundation to write a grant for whatever we needed."

The center also recently brought on another new staff member, a bunny named Lucy.

"They brought her on just over a year ago, and she's been a really good addition to the place," Harvey said.

Harvey said that they anticipate so many more renovations to continue to happen over a long period of time since the building is so old.

"It was built in 1925, so there will be constant repairs and upgrades," said Harvey. "I don't think we'll see the end of it in our lifetime."

Brainerd said that she is very happy with the repairs that have been done and is excited to keep beautifying the center in order to make it a better environment for their students.

"We are floating," said Brainerd. "We have made so much progress, and being able to see that transition of the building to cared for and refurbished is amazing."

Harvey and Brainerd agree that having a beautiful place makes for a more comfortable environment that allows students to be more happy and engaged in activities.

"If you have something beautiful, it makes you feel good," said Brainerd.

While Harvey added, "I think being in a clean, attractive place helps the students focus on he work they're doing, and it makes them feel good and us feel good."

If you are interested in donating or helping with any project at the Wade Center, contact them at 304-323-3777, and for more information, visit the Wade Center website.

— Contact Kassidy Brown at kbrown@bdtonline.com.