LAWRENCEBURG, Tenn. (WTVF) — About 90 minutes south of Nashville, there is an ongoing effort to transform a building that used to be an all-Black school into a museum and community center.
You may remember we covered this a couple of years ago.
"We formed this group to save this historic site," said James Wallace, West Gaines School Community Center president.
Now a new development may help make that happen.
"This is a mutually beneficial way for our students to utilize the skills that they've learned in the classroom while helping the community," Rebecca Moore said.
Moore is a Lawrenceburg native and is an assistant professor of Interior Design at Belmont University.
"We'll really give them a full set of drawings that they can use probably to build from and if not at least used to get people excited," Moore said.
Six students will be working on their projects for months, wrapping up in August. Right now, the West Gaines School Community Center organization is actively fundraising to fix up this building.
"Sometimes people just need to see the vision of what it can be," Moore said.
The fundraiser is happening on Feb. 24 and you can learn more about the ongoing efforts to restore the building, here.
There are still so many families in East Tennessee hurting following the floods from Hurricane Helene in September. That made this year's running of the Santa Train extra special for many families in the northeast part of the state. This special Santa Express has been making an annual run in part of Appalachia for over 80 years.
-Lelan Statom
