Appalachia Helps Where D.C. Fails

Unlike many college students who spend their spring break partying, about a dozen students from Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C., are going to seize the "chance to give back to the community," according to a news release from the D.C.-based National Center for Children and Families.

The center said the students, supported by Appalachian State's Alternative Spring Break program, will leave their school, in the heart of the Appalachian mountains, to volunteer their services to "one of our nation's most economically distressed areas."

And where, you may ask, might that be? Why, precious reader, the Appalachian State collegians are coming to us.

Their spring break excursion will take them to Southeast Washington -- specifically to J.C. Nalle Elementary School in the Marshall Heights community of Ward 7. Once there on Monday, the students are expected to work through the week with children in kindergarten through fifth grade, as well as on various projects around Nalle.

I can hear you: "Folks from the Appalachians are coming to help us?"

Is Bush a Republican? Yes, they're coming here.

True, others, such as Hurricane Katrina victims, could use their help.

But the 90-year-old National Center for Children and Families has decided that the District has an economically distressed area that needs all the help it can get.

D.C. leaders, past and present, take a bow.

Frankly, Nalle, like many D.C. schools, does need help. Nalle has been getting it, too, from the Freddie Mac Foundation, the Children's Aid Society of New York and the National Center for Children and Families. These groups have helped transform Nalle into a community school where enrichment programs, mental health and social services are provided to children along with hours of volunteer services.

I know Nalle, having featured it in three columns [" A Tour the Mayor Should Take," July 28, 2001; " D.C. Dumping Ground," Sept. 8, 2001; " 12 Days of Christmas," Dec. 24, 2005].

The Christmas Eve 2005 column was about the body of a black woman found frozen, her brains scattered across Nalle's playground, lying in a pool of blood between the hopscotch squares and the monkey bars. Visiting the crime scene days later, I saw broken locks on the playground gates and a metal school door that led to the playground and was scarred by 13 gunshots.