The story below is a preview from our January/February 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
Through acts of care and creativity, Roanoke’s neighbors build a stronger, more vibrant community every day.
Aaron Spicer
Tokens of kindness pass like whispers in the middle of our valley’s busy streets each day. These comfort-bearers, these heedful neighbors, slip by unnoticed. One thing binds them together — their desire to love and care for their neighbors in magnanimous ways.
“It’s a beautiful thing,” says Karla Sharrer.
After having lived in Southeast Roanoke for six years and having volunteered there even longer, Sunni Purviance knew that her Roanoke City quadrant had a bad rap. She wanted to write Southeast a love song.
“I was having such a positive experience, I felt like the I (HEART) SE movement needed to be put out there so the folks who felt negatively about Southeast could see all the good stuff that was happening,” Purviance says.
Thus began I (HEART) SE, a grassroots organization that spotlights that community’s best qualities and encourages the people who live there to get involved in neighborhood events.
“We invite neighbors to share positive activities together and connect with resources in the neighborhood,” Purviance says.
The Roanoke Plawkers group came together in 2019 as a spin-off of I (HEART) SE. The group gathers to pick up litter while strolling the neighborhood every week, March through November.
Aaron Spicer
Neighbors come together from across the city and neighboring counties to catch up and clean up the streets multiple times a week.
“We do it to stay engaged and get to know more people, make friends,” says Roanoke Neighborhood Advocate Cameron Chase, who plawks in Southeast with his partner Tanner Harmon. “It’s a party.”
“This type of movement, it takes people to actually make it work,” Mashawn Walker says. His group meets in the Melrose/Orange neighborhood. Nicole Huff of 321 Millworks has organized a small business group; there have been brewery plawks, costume plawks and regular plawks in neighborhoods across the valley.
Even schools have gotten in on the action; John P. Fishwick students who participate in the Kids in Community after school program plawk weekly. “The program gives the neighbors in the community a sense that the youth are not lost,” 6th grade teacher Elizabeth Hughes says.
Artist Caroline Booth sees art as a connector. “Art brings everyone together. Through art, you can relate to other people, and relate to your community. You can know that you’re not alone and that there are other people like you that are going through hard things,” she says.
Lindsey Hull
Booth paints kindness rocks and hides them around the city as a way to spread joy; last fall, she worked with the Roanoke Arts Commission to install Free Little Art Galleries to further increase accessibility to the arts.
Last fall, Booth installed Roanoke City's first Free Little Art Gallery in Highland Park. The box is filled with small works of art, free for the taking. Booth has been known to spread painted rocks around town as another way of leaving tokens of art for folks to find. Her goal is to make art more accessible to members of the community.
“There’s a lot of people who are struggling, who are down on their luck, who are having a hard time. If we can put a box of free artwork that they can take and keep in their pocket as a reminder that someone cares and loves them, then by all means, we should make that happen,” Booth says.
She lives by one rule: she takes care of the people she loves. Whether Booth is giving a hug, walking someone’s dog, or setting up a meal train, she finds a way to serve others. Her mother modeled that behavior for her, and Booth finds ways to carry it forward.
“I do whatever I can to just make our little corner of the world a little bit better,” Booth says.
Semelle Ramsey has a heart for making children feel loved.
“It’s important for children to see people that look like them helping them,” Ramsey says. She brings joy and fun into their lives, recognizing that kids often see adults as stern authority figures rather than playmates.
Lindsey Hull
CommUNITY ArtsReach volunteer Semelle Ramsey teaches choreography for the ministry’s annual Nativity performance. She says it is important for youth to see people who look like them, who know how to laugh and have a good time.
A volunteer with Northwest-based CommUNITY ArtsReach, Ramsey has also provided short- and long-term housing for children who have needed it, she says. She makes it clear her home isn’t a place to hide from parents; the child’s legal guardians must be informed and agree to the arrangement. Most stay a short period, a few days, weeks.
“If we don’t help each other, then who’s going to do it?” Ramsey says.
Want to read about even more individuals in our community finding creative ways to connect with and support their neighbors? Check out the latest issue, now on newsstands, or see it for free in our digital guide linked below!
The story above is a preview from our January/February 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!