The Town of Chapel Hill in collaboration with 97.9 The Hill WCHL & Chapelboro.com present “Our Town: Stories of Chapel Hill.” Each month you’ll hear from the people at the heart of your local government who are learning, serving, and working together to build a community where people thrive. This month, Hargraves Community Center Supervisor, John French, and Recreation Assistant, Brenton Harrison, tell the story of the Hargraves Community Center.
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Brentton Harrison: Hargraves is a community center based in a historically African American community in Chapel Hill, run by the town, built by the community. From advocacy to recreation, if it falls in between there, as a person who’s trying to grow up, you’re trying to build a family, it is a perfect place to be.
John French: The Hargraves Center is a place where you can get all your holistic needs met from social, emotional, sports, everything, from the unhoused to just needing a pair of socks – we normally have some of those around there too! Hargraves is quintessential to the community because it was built by the community. My role at Hargraves is the Hargraves Center Supervisor. Everything from running programs to staffing, to making sure that I talk to community folks, and listen to what their needs are.
Harrison: The person who’s leading it now is the person who really got me interested in it and made me feel safe when I was there. John’s been there since I was a kid. He was there advocating and sharing his wisdom as a young man growing up in Chapel Hill and being of service all the time. I think that is something that is super important, to know that he’s been there, he’s been doing the work, helping the community. My role is technically the recreation assistant at Hargraves. Hargraves Community Center is a place for a lot of kids, especially like me, growing up and going to the Hargraves Center. It was a home away from home. It was a safe haven where we could learn how to socialize with different people from different walks of life and also be exposed to a lot of different things that we wouldn’t necessarily be exposed to otherwise. Hargraves means a lot. The people who work there have been in the community for a long time and are ingrained in the fabric of the center and being of service in the community.
French: As a supervisor at Hargraves, I believe it is real important to get people that understand the community or like John said, have been a part of the fabric of the community. So when I look to hire, I look to hire folks who have been in the area and know the importance of Hargraves. I like to get the young folks who have participated in our programs, so they bring the energy, and also those who are knowledgeable about what happened in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, so that we have a cross culture.
The full marker at Hargraves Community Center recognizing it as an integral part of the Civil Rights movement in North Carolina.
Harrison: The Hargraves Center has an incredibly rich history behind it.
French: It’s always been that place. For example, Dr. King met with a couple of students before they went out and did a protest. Keith Edwards, who used to be a community activist and an elder, her story really resonates with me because she talked about how Hargraves and North Roberson Street were a safe haven for her because she was one of the first to integrate the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools. She talked about how mean students were and how she was spat on, but when she came down North Roberson Street, how safe she felt just walking down the street. That’s the story I get from so many community folks. It made my job as a center supervisor a little different from almost any place I have worked, because I have to make sure that I listen to the voices of the past.
Harrison: A typical day at Hargraves, we see people of varying ages, from kindergarten and young adults with young infants, all the way up to seniors. We have a bunch of seniors that come every Thursday, and they just sew quilts and make quilts. When we don’t have it, they’re like, when can we get back in? It’s a place where they feel welcome and they feel almost like, this is their time to do this, and they feel empowered to say that the center is theirs to use. I think that’s something. And we have our after-school program. We have teenagers and their younger siblings coming to play basketball during our free play time.
French: We also have a daycare, which is a program Hargraves began with when it first started.
Harrison: Hargraves is at the intersection of social work and recreation and all the programs that we design, we try to think about the person as a total person, just trying to consider every aspect. Whether it’s a young person who needs help with grades or a senior who needs help with learning how to use their computer. We just try to show up as best we can for the community.
French: When COVID came, we were one of the first places to offer the vulnerable population, 65 and up, the COVID shot. Over 200 folks were able to come and get the shot. They trusted the environment where they were getting the shots. Just to show our range during COVID, we became a housing spot for 60 students every day who didn’t have access to internet and food and all that type of stuff, and we provided masks and computers, and the kids were able to get their work done. From that we spun off a tutoring program where we had 15 to 20 kids who were failing every class, even before the in-person school shut down, and every last one of those kids were on the honor roll at the end of that tutoring session. Those are the things that are really important to me. Another thing that’s important to me is that we did this, well, I come from a single mother, and Christmas was always really important to her. She would go out and buy all these gifts and then had nothing for herself. So one of the things we do at Hargraves is every year kids from our after-school program, and other programs, we figure out which have single parents, and we go out and buy gifts for the kids and their parents, and their facial expressions and the gratitude that they have is the most amazing thing to me.
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