Renovations for Rocky Mount community center will keep gym a staple for many kids to come

A gym at Rocky Mount's Booker T. Washington Community Center hosts hundreds of kids in eastern North Carolina every week for basketball.

Soon, it'll be getting an updated court, new bleachers, and an HVAC system for the first time in decades.

"My dad used to play industrial league here," said Rocky Mount Council member Jabaris Walker. "We were looking over the weekend, his first Championship game we won was 1991, so I was one year old."

Three generations of the Walker family have played basketball in this gym.

Before it was a community center, it was a high school. Walker said his grandfather attended.

"He passed away a few years ago," Walker said. "But we were always talking about how special this was for the community. He may have been in the last graduating class."

Walker remembers playing here as a kid. Sometimes, he comes back as a Rocky Mount council member, representing the community he grew up in.

"It's still packed out," he said. Maybe 20 or 30 people a night. On a Sunday, 50 to 75 people."

Soon, the court will have a new surface, new bleachers to sit in and an updated HVAC system.

"Getting the funding for this is huge," Walker said. "We have been talking about it for a long time. To see it finally happen is a beautiful thing."

A lot of changes are ahead, but one thing that will stay the same and that's the history, There's a plaque remembering the day Martin Luther King Jr. spoke here in 1962.

While Walker doesn't get out here much these days, he said the renovation may bring him back. He hopes it will continue to anchor this community, the way it has for him.

"The game of basketball is a direct correlation to life," Walker said. "That is what it's done for this community. You see guys who disliked each other years ago now come together playing on the same basketball team."

The project is currently out for bid. After one is accepted the city expects work to begin within weeks.