Community Adobe Education Day June 19, 2010

Volunteers Needed for restoration of Phillips CME Church
When: Saturday June 19, 2010 starting at 9:00 am – 5:00 pm
Where: Phillips Chapel CME Church, 638 N. Tornillo St, Las Cruces, NM

Mr. Clarence Fielder, Professor of African American History with Dr. Beth O’Leary, Assistant Professor in Anthropology, NMSU, and Mr. Ronald Taylor, DACC - Program Coordinator Building Construction Technology, and Mr. Pat Taylor- Adobe Expert and Instructor (DACC), have been working this Spring 2010 and this summer session with NMSU students in the DACC Adobe Restoration class to restore the 100 year old adobe chapel which also served as a school during segregation and as a community center on Tornillo street in the Mesquite Historic District.

Saturday volunteers can learn to make adobe, plaster and restore the church. Please bring work clothes and stay for however long you can or simply come to view the ongoing restoration work. Refreshments will be provided.

Mr. Fielder and Ms. Terry Moody, MA (2003), Department of Anthropology, researched and assisted in the creation of the Las Cruces African American Community part of an exhibit “New Mexico’s Visible, Vital and Valuable” opening Friday 18 June at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque http://nhccnm.org/. Mr. Fielder and Ms Moody received a New Mexico Endowment for Humanities Grant and presented a previous exhibit at Corbett Center, Kent Hall University Museum, Court Street Youth Center and Branigan Cultual Center in Las Cruces. They also put the Phillips Church CME Chapel, the oldest African American church in Las Cruces which is now undergoing restoration, on the State and National Registers of Historic Places

For more information:
Contact Ronald Taylor 575 644 7404; Beth O’Leary 575 644 1668 or Clarence Fielder 575 642 6330