Preserving a historic one-room school house — this week’s Loving Giving Local donation will help do that for the Valley School in Albion.
Sitting on the campus of the Northwestern School District in Albion is the Valley School, which is a circa 1853 one-room schoolhouse formerly located on Cherry Valley Road.
Closed in 1954, it was moved to Albion in the late ’90s and then restored. It’s now in the custodianship of the Northwestern Community Education Foundation.
With financial help, the group hopes to breathe new life into the living museum.
“We’re hoping to raise money, to get the building resided. The money Mr. Askins has given us will go to the front door. We’re hoping to have the school open at specific times, invite more of the school groups, first-grade, third-grade or whatever, to come over here and have lessons here as they would have been taught if they were alive in like 1890 or something,” said David Olson, Northwestern Community Education Foundation.
You can just imagine what it was like to go to school in this one-room schoolhouse. On one side of the room, the desks are much smaller than the desks on the other where the older kids would sit. The foundation feels it’s important to preserve this history.
“We need to know where we’ve been, what we come from as a people. If we lose sight of that, I think we are in a lot of trouble in our society,” Olson added.
“For us to bring Loving Giving Local to the Northwestern School District Foundation and to learn today that the donation is going into a piece of Northwestern history, that’s what Loving Giving Local is all about. It’s bringing a donation to the community, and hopefully, the Albion and northwestern communities can enjoy this one-room school house,” said Joe Askins, sponsor, Auto Express Superstore.
The foundation encourages anyone with financial gifts, time or talent that can help maintain this educational treasure to reach out to them online.