Liz Kirchner
communitynews@ourvalley.org
The Christiansburg Institute Inc. is inviting the community to submit designs for the Edgar A. Long T-Shirt Design Contest themed: “Reimagine Our Building,” one of several fund-raising efforts to re-roof and re-imagine the historic space.
“Can you breathe life into the historic Edgar A. Long building,” the flyer seen around town said. “Once it was a school structure. Next it will be your learning center.”
Planned as a place of “gathering, honoring, building and being brave,” the T-shirt design contest asks, “How do you re-imagine it?”
“In addition to the t-shirt design contest and other programs and projects, our development committee and community task force is engaged in an ongoing multi-platform fundraising strategy,” Chris Sanchez, CI project organizer, wrote in an email. “We’re wanting to raise $137,000. That figure does not reflect any potential grant matching opportunities. We’ve raised $13,000.”
The re-imagined building will be a place to meet, engage in conversation about issues facing the New River Valley, and grow as a community, according to Sanchez. It’s a place where “we uplift the marginalized around us, create brave spaces, and learn from one another,” Sanchez wrote.
The diversity of fundraising efforts is a blend of new and traditional.
Historic preservation grants, online crowd funding and social media campaigns, and advancing partnerships with local government, community organizations and VT are among the strategies the foundation is using to fix the roof and replace doors and windows.
“Our most recent and updated construction reports indicate that repair and restoration of the roof is $150,000. We’ve been consistent all year with that figure,” Sanchez said.
The four categories of contestants reflect the effort’s blending of past and future in youth, college students, adults and CI alumni groups who span the sweep of American experience. The contest carries the building’s theme of inclusivity, safety and bravery.
The goal of the fun and family-friendly competition is to engage the creative imagination and artistic expression of our diverse communities across the New River Valley, raise awareness about the Christiansburg Institute and advance a community-centered grassroots approach to the preservation of the historic Edgar A. Long building.
“This is a fully inclusive arts-based contest; whether you’re a CI alum, a descendent, identify in the black and brown community, are white, trans, Muslim, differently abled, a refugee, a professor, a student, a coal miner, we want to see your vision of a restored Edgar A. Long building. How do express your identities, life experiences, and passions in the design,” Sanchez said.
In 1866, Captain Charles S. Schaeffer, a Union soldier and Baptist minister saw the tremendous need in Christiansburg, and led the effort to educate newly freed slaves.
The first school, in a rented house, taught twelve people officially, but people were crowding in to listen to lessons at the doors and windows. Within three years, the school had enrolled 200 people.
The Christiansburg Institute educated people through years of segregation in the American south.
The school closed in 1966 when local public schools integrated, but the handsome brick 1927 Edgar A. Long building still stands at 140 Scattergood Drive, representing the struggle and perseverance African American people used to overcome barriers to participate in a larger American society.
“We uplift the marginalized around us, create brave spaces, and learn from one another,” Sanchez wrote. “Brave spaces, similar to safe spaces, is an inclusive movement-building term. Brave spaces are designed to combat systemic oppression (racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia) by laying out basic rules of engagement around sensitive and controversial subjects for traditionally marginalized communities.”
Submissions from all community members are welcome by Nov. 20. For submission packets, contact christiansburginstituteinc@gmail.com or visit christiansburginstitute.com.
For more information about the school and the people who made it possible, visit www.montgomerymuseum.org.
