Community Connections

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The story below is 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.

Editor's Note: See this feature come to life in our first podcast episode of Season 3 as we chat with Sunni Purviance about I(HEART)SE, Roanoke Plawkers, why we love this region and so much more!

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.

“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.

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.

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.

In 2022, Marion Ware and friend Cheryl Mosely chartered Young Docs ROA, a non-profit that seeks to inspire young Black and Brown men to become doctors. Through the program, Ware and other volunteers meet with participants throughout the school year, hold community health clinics and attend a summer health academy in Washington, D.C.

Last fall, Ware and her young docs canvassed the Northwest Roanoke streets, visiting with residents to discuss future blood pressure checks. 

Members of the community saw the boys walking the neighborhood and told them that they were doing great work, Ware says, adding that it was good for them to hear that.

Ware went to one house with Carrington McNeil, one of the first participants to join the program. An elderly lady lived there. “She said to [Carrington], ‘I haven’t seen you since you were a little bitty thing!” She was amazed to see that he had grown old enough to now care for someone else.

On Winona Avenue SW, “everybody knows each other,” says longtime resident James Settle. While neighbors Kemper Fant and Blair Celli say that Settle and Jim Hosch are the street’s connectors — the glue that holds the neighborhood together — it is apparent that this street cultivates a culture of neighborliness. Settle attributes it to the front porches, sidewalks and alleyways. Neighbors share keys — they’re friends, Fant says.

There’s more.

It is clear that every family here shows up for each other and also for the good of their community. They’re quick to catch loose dogs, round up each other’s kids or run a carpool or walking bus to school. They find funding to plant trees, speak up at city planning meetings and have pressed authorities over poor code enforcement in the past.

Some neighbors have lived on the street 25 years; some moved there in 2020. All belong.

“One thing we noticed when we moved here is how inclusive it is. This neighborhood is accessible to everybody. You don’t have to be a certain way to fit in, to be here,” Bethany Todd says.

Cindy Pasternak and her husband Steven live in the Grand View area of Mount Pleasant. Pasternak has founded two neighborhood associations, helped with drug busts and worked to keep a propane line from infiltrating the neighborhood. She’s been an active member of I (HEART) SE and Roanoke Plawkers.

A number of years ago, Pasternak developed a friendship with Zeke Lester, a fellow farmer who lived close by. They’d hang over the fence, chatting, when Pasternak walked her dogs. Lester died six years ago, leaving behind his widow, Flo. The couple began to drop in, helping Flo Lester with her grocery shopping, minor home repairs and other small chores.

“I don’t know what I would have done without Cindy,” Flo Lester says. “Everybody needs a good friend.”

That’s the sort of neighborliness that cements a community together — the snapshot memories that pull at our hearts from one generation to the next… when the yards become parks and the door stoops are wide and welcoming for all … when you can bang on the door and a friendly voice merely shouts, “Come in!”

The Free Little Art Gallery is supported by the Roanoke Arts Commission as well as other partners.

The SE ROA mural was created by artists Nicole Gray, Steven Paul and Gretchen Coleman.

The story above is from our January/February 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!