NTJCC Students Help Preserve Local History In Virginia

NTJCC Students Help Preserve Local History In Virginia

(NDG Wire) Two students from the North Texas Job Corps Center joined six other Job Corps students from Aug. 24-Sept. 4 to help preserve a bit of Virginia’s post-Civil War history.

NTJCC students Bryon McQueen and Glenn Robinson worked with other students from Muhlenberg Career Development Center and the Sacramento and Whitney M. Young Job Corps centers, all operated by Horizons Youth Services, to restore Long’s Chapel. McQueen is enrolled in the brick masonry career technical training program at NTJCC, and Robinson is enrolled in cement masonry. Long’s Chapel is a small, wooden church that served as a spiritual and educational center for a community of Zenda. Newly freed slaves formed that community, also known as “Little Africa,” after the Civil War. Long’s Chapel, which fell into disrepair over the years, is located in Rockingham County, Va., near the corporate headquarters of HYS.

The Job Corps students spent the two weeks insulating, re-siding and painting the structure, repairing windows and reinforcing the chapel’s foundation. Students stayed at nearby Camp Horizons, where HYS headquarters is located, and traveled to the job site each day. During the evenings, students enjoyed activities at camp such as the high ropes courses, a horseback trail ride, swimming and campfires. Students also traveled to Washington, D.C., during the weekend to enjoy a NFL game between the Washington Redskins and the New England Patriots. The following day, they toured the monuments of Washington, D.C.

In addition to getting valuable hands-on experience with this preservation project, students also received work-based learning credit toward the completion of their career technical training programs.

The preservation efforts are coordinated by The Longs Chapel Preservation Society, which was established to restore and preserve the chapel so descendents of slaves and of slave owners, as well as the general public, can visit the site to honor the legacy of faith and freedom memorialized by the simple wooden structure. The students’ volunteer efforts were coordinated and supervised by HYS.