Hopper Academy renovations are nearly complete
For more than 50 years, young black students learned their ABCs and multiplication tables at Hopper Academy, a two-story wood-framed building in Sanford’s Georgetown neighborhood.
But the academy closed in the early 1960s, and the historic schoolhouse fell into disrepair over the decades. Broken windows were boarded. Termites invaded and moisture rotted away the sidings and a wooden walkway leading to the front entrance. A leaky roof caused mold to grow inside the walls.
Now the old Hopper Academy building on Pine Avenue, which is nearing the completion of a $525,000 restoration project that began two years ago, is expected to reopen as a new community center.
“We will be ready to open within a month, and it will be a real facility for residents to use,” said Pastor Paul Hoyer, the project manager and a board member of the Community Association of Seminole County,
which led the restoration effort. “It looks really nice.”
He said the old Hopper Academy building was in such bad shape that when he leaned against an outside wall while having a conversation about two years ago, “the whole building tilted a little bit.”
Tucked between 11th Street and Celery Avenue, Hopper Academy sits in the heart of one of the city’s oldest black neighborhoods.
Georgetown residents have long wanted a community center for their neighborhood that would offer after-school programs, classes for seniors and a venue for gatherings, including wedding receptions and community group meetings.
Built in 1906, the 9,000-square-foot building educated black children from Orange and Seminole counties during segregation. It was one of the few schools for blacks in Florida at the time. After Hopper Academy closed, the building was used as a library, a church and a place for community meetings.
In the early 1990s, the Seminole school district and Sanford donated the building to the Community Improvement Association, which was set up to renovate and manage the property.
The latest restoration effort kicked off after the group received several historical preservation grants and private donations. The project included adding new flooring, rebuilding the windows and most interior walls, plus replacing the brick foundation.
“When we started, we didn’t realize how bad in shape the building was,” Hoyer said. “Every time we tore something out, we uncovered something new.”
Sanford resident Betty Robinson, who attended first through sixth grades at Hopper Academy in the 1940s, remembers classrooms being heated by wood stoves and a janitor coming in during lessons to fill it with wood.
Because the building lacked indoor bathrooms, students ran outside to use one of two outhouses at the back of the property, said Robinson, an association board member.
“I’m glad to see that it’s being renovated,” she said. “It’s a historical place, and we really need a building for the community to come together.”
Sanford City Commissioner Art Woodruff, also an association board member, said the renovations should be completed by March. The group plans to lease out space on the first floor for after-school and arts programs.
“It’s been a lot of work and effort,” he said. “We’re excited to see that it’s finally to going to be completed.”
Sanford resident Claudia Brown, 71, who attended first through sixth grades there in the 1950s, said she is pleased the east side of Sanford finally will have a new community building for residents.
“It can be a good place where people can gather and become a positive thing for the community,” she said. “But if it doesn’t bring in quality programs — such as mentoring programs, leadership programs for youths, programs for the elderly — then the building is not going to serve anyone. It will just be a building.”