Education and environmental groups benefit from nonprofit's grants

Oct. 26—Wednesday was a day of celebration as the representatives of the Coosa Valley Resource Conservation and Development Council took a tour of the projects they funded earlier this year across Calhoun County.

The council, known informally as RC&D, is located in Heflin. It made grant money available earlier this year but Wednesday staffers took oversized checks made out to the entities that received the amounts. Ciara Turner, the council's executive director, said the 501(c)3 nonprofit accelerates the conservation, development and utilization of natural resources, improves the general level of economic activity and enhances the environment and standard of living in designated RC&D areas.

The nonprofit's service area includes the counties of Calhoun, Chambers, Cherokee, Clay, Cleburne, Coosa, Etowah, Randolph, St. Clair, Talladega and Tallapoosa.

Turner said that doing things for children and benefiting the community is the main goal of RC&D.

The first stop was at Coosa Valley Youth Services in Anniston that received $4,000 to update the school's libraries with hundreds of new books. RC&D staff along with State Sen. Keith Kelley toured the facility and met with employees of Coosa Valley Youth Services. The group visited one of the three libraries at the facility and chatted with youth who were enjoying some of the new books.

Jason Granholm, executive director of Coosa Valley Youth Services, said the books will benefit all the youth in the three programs offered at Coosa Valley Youth Services — the secured detention center, Robert E. Lewis Academy and the Attention Home for at-risk girls. Coosa Valley Youth Services serves 11 counties with the detention center and six counties with the two residential programs.

"We're a temporary holding facility for youth that are pending court intervention and after court intervention, they wait here until they go to their placements," he said.

"Our residential programs are actually a placement, it's a community based diversion program in an effort to keep kids from going down south to Mt. Meigs (a juvenile correctional facility in Montgomery County) we try to keep them in the community and work with them," Granholm said.

Granholm said reading is instrumental in expanding the horizons of the children and opens up the world to them, especially at-risk kids.

"Knowledge is power, and that's one thing that we can do is empower these young people to go on and have a better and more successful life in the future," he said.

Mary East, a teacher at the detention center, applied for the grant from RC&D for the books. She said some of the grant will go to gift cards used as incentives for the AR reading program at the facility to get kids to read books.

Kelley said reading opens up another world that kids didn't know existed.

"Depending on what the home environment is, that reading can offer an escape, it can make all the difference in the world," Kelley said.

There were three kids in the detention center library when the entourage came through. When asked by librarian Lindsey Patterson, one of the kids said he enjoyed the big selection of books.

"I like the humor books and some scary books like Stephen King, I like Stephen King," said one of the kids who added he likes the James Dashner "Maze Runner" book series and the book "The Last Kids on Earth" by author Max Brallier.

Kelley spoke directly to the kids who said he had read books as a kid himself as an escape from some unpleasant things.

Kelley told a tale from his youth about taking the correct path in life when confronted by "friends" who had tried to influence him otherwise.

"I made some mistakes but I learned from those and got myself together and realized some of those folks were not really my friends after all, you get a lot of peer pressure," he said.

Weaver Cave trail project

The next stop was at Weaver Cave Reserve located on Cave Road in Anniston where the RC&D folks pulled out the big oversized check for a photo op and filled in the amount of $11,170.47 made out to the Georgia Alabama Land Trust. The Georgia Alabama Land Trust in 2020 bought the 50-acre tract that includes Weaver Cave and is now in charge of maintaining the site. The RC&D money was used to construct a safe and maintainable walking trail, a bridge over Cave Creek, a bench and a boardwalk for a portion of the trail.

Addressing a small crowd gathered next to the gated cave entrance, Lesley Hanson, director of monitoring for the land trust, described all of the improvements made to the property thanks to the RC&D grant. As she spoke, Cave Creek burbled and echoed as it exited the cave entrance, accompanied by a steady flow of underground aromas emanating from a labyrinth of passages.

"We're very appreciative," Hanson said.

Hanson said the trail built with the grant money is three-tenths of a mile that begins and ends on the east and west side of the property. Hanson said the grant will help make the cave property a positive recreational space for the community as well as maintaining a permanent habitat for the cave's resident bats.

"We've been able to save a critical habitat for bats that haven't had a lot of breaks lately, so it's important to save this cave for them," Hanson said.

Hanson said she has gotten positive feedback about what the Georgia Alabama Land Trust has done with the property.

"For the most part the community has been really glad to see something positive done with the property, it has been loved by the community," Hanson said, "I've heard stories of people bringing their kids and their grandkids here, but along with that came a lot of vandalism, trash, loitering."

Hanson mentioned that the land trust hosts Wing Night that typically takes place in August where patrons can watch bats emerge from the cave in a spectacular fashion.

"During Wing Night, we watch about 12,000 gray bats emerge from the cave at dusk," she said.

Besides the gray bats, the cave hosts the Indiana bat, an endangered species, and the tricolored bat that is a candidate for the endangered species list, she said.

"Protecting the property is a huge win for the bats, but we also hope it will be an asset to the community as we continue to develop it as a recreational space," Hanson said.

In October guided cave tours let amateur spelunkers and others explore the many passages the cave has to offer.

Kelley, from Weaver, remembers the cave fondly from visits he made as a child. He said that families would gather at the cave to have picnics after church.

"It was a community gathering place for a while," Kelley said.

Other groups receiving grants on Wednesday included:

— Realize Your Self-Worth Every Day (R.Y.S.E) received $6,300 to purchase technology and books to give access to American/World History books, local/national newspaper subscriptions and biographies/autobiographies of successful men with the goal of building self-esteem and character in the mentees.

— Hobson City Museum for the study of African American history and culture received $5,000 to purchase display cases and display items.

— The Choccolocco Nature Preserve received $5,7000 for trail development.

— The Choccolocco Preserve and Nature Center received $10,000 to design and develop sustainable outdoor recreation and cultural trails that forest environmental stewardship.

— Sandi Paws Rescue received $7,000 to spay,neuter and provide medical treatment for unwanted pets.

Staff writer Bill Wilson: 256-235-3562. On Twitter @bwilson_star.