HOLLY HILL, S.C. - Amid the clouds Saturday morning, a bright future emerged in Holly Hill. Shining a light on community service and volunteerism, the Community Organization for Rights and Empowerment unveiled a new Resource and Computer Center in Orangeburg Consolidated School District 3.

The ceremony began at Holly Hill-Roberts Middle School and was attended by local residents, CORE members and several officials from Washington, D.C.

CORE is a nonprofit organization which began in 1999 with concerned residents seeking answers to alleged environmental hazards in the Holly Hill community.

"They thought we were trying to shut them down," Virginia Townsend, executive director of CORE, said of local industries in her welcoming remarks. "We were just looking for answers."

Those answers led to an entirely different focus for the group.

Townsend, with a vision of helping her community and its children, began to concentrate on getting volunteers involved in the schools, freeing teachers to spend more time teaching and less time dealing with discipline and other distractions.

CORE volunteers track discipline "write-ups" and n.jpgy parents when they occur.

"Sometimes, you n.jpgy the parents, and that's all you have to do," Townsend said.

Volunteers are also being trained to do health screenings, like blood pressure and blood sugar measurements.

"We live in the buckle of the stroke belt," Townsend said, referring to Orangeburg County's stroke rate. Working with Orangeburg County EMS and the Regional Medical Center, CORE aims to reduce strokes and educate people about health risks.

Now with the help of Congressman Jim Clyburn, the Department of Energy and other national and local partners, another of Townsend's visions of helping the community is taking shape. The Resource and Computer Center is taking off, with an initial stock of 250 federal surplus computers sourced and delivered by the National Small Town Alliance which is headed by John Rosenthal.

Rosenthal, in his welcoming comments to the crowd, noted that he, along with Rep. Clyburn, share CORE's vision.

The Department of Energy was represented by Melinda Downing.

"I'm from a small town in Tennessee," she said, "and I will do anything to make it possible to make technology available" in rural settings.

Dr. David Longshore Jr., superintendent of Orangeburg Consolidated School District 3, said CORE has facilities on the campus of the middle school. The middle school was the old Holly Hill-Roberts High School, but the consolidation of HH-R and Elloree High Schools into the new Lake Marion High School left the district with more room, and CORE moved in.

Longshore said he hopes to see some of the computers put into homes of lower-income families who don't have Internet access to get children in those homes acclimated to working with computers.

"Ninety-three percent of our students qualify for free and reduced cost meals, so that should tell you something about the financial need," he said.

After the welcoming ceremony was concluded, buses were provided to take attendees to the Technology Center. There, the CORE facility was on display, with a Career Room which will help users learn to write cover letters, resumes and search through questions they will likely face in job interviews as well as a Health and Wellness room.

CORE members gave a brief overview of each room's use and explained that they were still in the stocking phase, with only 75 of the first 250 computers in place. Volunteers are working to get the center ramped up, with local partners pitching in.

One local partner is Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College. Tech volunteers "overhaul" the computers, load software and get them ready for the users. Tech will also train CORE volunteers to perform these tasks.

"We plan on having even the sixth graders knowing how to tear down the computers," Townsend said.

The Technology Center is unique in that instead of catering only to students, it caters to the entire community. Members of the community can come to the center and use the computers to research jobs, health and other sites on the Internet.

With the plans to distribute the computers to residents, the computers can't arrive fast enough.

"Mr. Rosenthal," Townsend said, "Mr. Hand from Tech says get the next 250 computers here."

Rosenthal smiled, shrugged his shoulders and simply said, "Okay."

T&D Correspondent Bill Carroll can be reached by e-mail at wcarroll3@sc.rr.com. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.

You must be logged in to comment.