ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — First Coast News continues to follow the story about a group of nuns in St. Augustine who are restoring a historic school house their fellow sisters operated, starting in the late 1800's. It's being turned into a neighborhood center.
The old Benedict the Moor schoolhouse stood empty for decades in the Lincolnville community of St. Augustine. Trees literally were growing through it.
And now, the outside is completely refurbished with a wrap-around porch, and the interior is almost complete.
"We are opening soon," Kristin Paul said. She walked through building Thursday, now that there is paint on the walls and lights are in the ceiling.
"It's beautiful and light and airy," she said, smiling as she strolled into the children's room and into the larger gathering space.
The Sisters of St. Joseph are restoring the this schoolhouse from the 1800’s where their fellow sisters taught black children until the 1960's. The restoration project started in early 2022.
"This will be a hub of activity," Paul said.
Once complete, the building will be the St. Joseph Neighborhood Center, and Paul will be its executive director.
"The main goal is the single mothers program," she said. It's program that will provide childcare while single mothers are learning job skills ranging from nursing, finance, and culinary.
"We are helping to move them from a lower wage rate to a higher wage rate," Paul said.
And the new neighborhood center will offer community programs as well "like financial fitness, leadership, healthy cooking on a budget, and spiritual classes." She said anyone in the community is welcome to attend those courses.
"I feel that in order for single moms to get ahead, they need two things. They need education and a support system," Paul said.
She knows dark days. When she left an abusive relationship, she became a single mother, and money was tight. "But through time and therapy, I healed and I wrote two books."
One is called 'Drowning.' It's about an abusive relationship. The other is about financial stability for single women after divorce. It's just the kind of background needed to lead a program for St. Augustine’s single mothers, a program envisioned by strong willed, loving nuns… in a building the Sisters of St. Joseph built 126 years ago.
Paul said, "We’re bringing it back to what the sisters’ legacy is all about which is helping our dear neighbor, helping those less fortunate, in an educational building."