Saving the Carver School/ American Legion Post 129: Letter to Mr. Cromley February 25, 2013

William Cromley Restoration

426 N. Columbus Street

Alexandria, VA. 22314

                                   February 25, 2013

Dear Mr. Cromley,

We appreciate and share your interest in the preservation of Alexandria’s history.  In response to the discussions which you have had with community leaders about the preservation, restoration, and adaptive reuse of the Carver Nursery School/ American Legion Post 129 building and site, we would like to give you an idea of what we are doing to save this important part of our history.  Specifically we have:

• Created a committee of community leaders and technical experts

expressly to save the Carver School;

• Formed an alliance with the Alexandria Society for the

Preservation of Black Heritage to solicit and secure funds using their  501(c)(3) private non-profit status; 

• Received a letter of support from the Alexandria Historical

Society, and;

* Prepared the following Action Plan which outlines specific tasks that we are prepared  to take as soon as possible to preserve, restore and adaptively reuse the Carver Nursery School/ American Legion Post 129 building and site.

Our vision for the Carver School/ American Legion Post 129 building and site is “to document, preserve and solidify the African American heritage in and the contributions to the City of Alexandria for current residents and those of generations to come”.

Action Plan to Save the Carver School/ American Legion Post 129

1. Continue a public outreach effort, through meetings and a social-media site, to bring other public, private, non-profit, faith-based and veterans organizations to forge alliances to save the Carver School.  As part of this task we have appointed Gwen Day-Fuller, Adrienne Terrell Washington, and J. Glenn Eugster as the official contacts for the committee’s work.
2. Solicit private donations with a variety of entities including the Alexandria Society for the Preservation of Black Heritage to preserve, restore and adaptively reuse the Carver School.
3. Convene a workgroup of public and private experts in historic preservation, economic development, adaptive reuse, heritage tourism, education, grants, and community development to help community leaders save the Carver School.
4. Hold a community interactive design charrette to develop specific alternatives, and illustrative sketches, for preservation, restoration and adaptive reuse of the building.  Possible uses include, but are not limited to, a day-care  and educational facility; meeting space for churches, civic and social organizations, and historic interpretive tourism displays.
5. Provide you with monthly reports on the progress of the Committee’s efforts.

We sincerely hope that you will be supportive of this effort and our committee’s work to save the Carver School.   We hope to be able to work collaboratively with you because you are the owner of the property, but also because of your knowledge of the building, and of construction in general.  It would be most helpful to meet with you in the next few weeks to discuss these actions.

Should you be willing to meet, or have any questions, please contact Gwen Day-Fuller at 703-370-3199; Adrienne Terrell Washington at 703-628-1726, or J. Glenn Eugster at 703-489-4207.

Thank you. 

Sincerely,

[approved 2-25-2013]

Gwen Day-Fuller

[approved 2-25-2013]

Ferdinand T. Day

Co-Chairs,

Carver School/ American Legion Post 129 Committee

4017 Fort Worth Ave. 

Alexandria, Va 22304

cc.  City of Alexandria, Mayor