After nearly 70 years, Upstate community center gets upgrades

PENDLETON, S.C. (WSPA) – The Pendleton Community Center was built in 1958 serving families, schools, churches and non profit organizations for decades.

Born and raised in Pendleton, Board Director Terence Hassan, said the community center plays a vital role in the town and keeping the building up to date is important.

“It was a very valuable part of my life and to the kids in this neighborhood because you had summer camps here when school was out, you had softball, baseball teams. Our parents came here for educational issues related to schools,” said Terence Hassan.

Hassan said during phase one crews replaced the floors, walls, doors, windows and added ADA ramps inside and outside of the building.

Phase two and three consist of renovating the auditorium for youth activities and turning the existing storage space into a multipurpose room for non profit organizations.

“Churches use it for anniversaries and for different programs. We still use it for summer camps at times, we tutor with tutoring services for the schools and the kids, families meet and single mothers for different issues and of course our senior citizens are going to be using this as well as Meals on Wheels of Anderson,” said Hassan.

The building outside is the Faith Cabin which is also a part of the masterplan to upgrade and preserve its history.

“It was built around the 1920’s and it provided books for African Americans to be able to read because during that time there were no schools built for education for the community,” said Hassan.

Next to the cabin is a playground. Hassan said the wood structure will be swapped out for plastic playscape making it safer.

“The playground and ball field will continue to get upgrades from time to time as well as the basketball court,” said Hassan.

Finally, to make renovations complete, the back half of the building where the restrooms are will have new walls.

“I’m trying to make sure that this is a legacy for generations to come. Salvaging this building, making it nice again, attracting services here that people can use and people can appreciate. It’s very important,” said Hassan.

Organizers said they are fundraising right now for phase two and hope to reach their goal by the end of the year before starting construction.

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