2018 Advocacy Award Recipient

The 2018 Advocacy Award recognizes both the specific effort of Galesville Community Center Organization Inc., represented tonight by Gertrude Makell and Lyndra Marshall, in restoring the Galesville Rosenwald School, and the group’s long-term record of advocacy since 2003 for the preservation of vernacular resources in their African American community. Beginning in 2003, Galesville Community Center Organization Inc. organized a fund-raising drive and successfully applied for grants from Preservation Maryland, Arundel Community Development Services, and the State of Maryland, to restore the dilapidated Rosenwald school, which had been declining since its abandonment as a school in 1956. After a decade of effort, the Galesville Community Center Organization has reopened the school as a living part of its community once again.

Needing something else to do, the group has more recently turned its attention to the Galesville baseball field, which was home to the Galesville Hot Sox from 1928 to 1977. In 2013, after three years of work, Hot Sox Field once again hosted a baseball game as the newest county park, Wilson Park. In 2015, conducting oral histories with 45 former team members and working with the local South River High School, Galesville Community Center Organization created a permanent local exhibit titled “Field of Dreams” to accompany the popular Smithsonian traveling exhibit “Hometown Teams: How Sports Shape America,” which was on display in the Rosenwald school community center.

Those of us who toured Galesville on Thursday saw clearly how much this community has accomplished by working together to document and preserve their important story. Thank you for all your work!