Community opens wallet to help Morris Brown pay bills

A bag full of quarters —- $100 to be precise —- wouldn’t do much to help Morris Brown College’s precarious financial situation if that was all that had been given to the financially troubled school.

But when combined with similarly sized contributions collected at a rally Saturday, 13-year-old Terrence McKenzie of Decatur had done his part to help the 127-year-old school’s campaign against almost certain closure.

“Because my mom really cares about Morris Brown,” was the reason the Shamrock Middle School pupil gave. He shrugged off any suggestions he had done anything special.

But the teen’s decision to empty his change jar of quarters —- he left the pennies, nickels and dimes for a trip to the Jan. 20 presidential inauguration —- brought his mother almost to tears. Miranda McKenzie said her son offered to help when she told him she was giving $1,000 to her alma mater. “I’m overwhelmed,” McKenzie said at the rally.

For the second Saturday in a row, supporters of a school created by slaves have held a rally/fund-raiser to save it. As of Friday, they had raised enough to make a $100,000 partial payment on an overdue water bill.

A judge told the city Friday to reconnect water service that had been off since Dec. 12, but he said the Department of Watershed Management had court approval to cut off service again if the school did not make it’s next scheduled payment of $214,000 by Feb. 17.

So on Saturday, the dorms opened for the spring semester, which starts in less than two weeks, because the water was on.

Still, the school is facing another crucial deadline. On Tuesday, Jordan Hall, which contains classrooms and the Ruth Hall Hodges Art Gallery, is to be auctioned on the Fulton County Courthouse steps to satisfy several liens against the property by the city of Atlanta, a real estate broker and a plumbing contractor.

“The issue of the water problem is not the only problem at Morris Brown College,” said acting President Stanley J. Pritchett Sr.

Pritchett said negotiations continued with the bondholder to delay the sale to settle those liens. He said selling the property now would not reflect the true value of Jordan Hall, which sits on the edge of the Morris Brown campus.

By Saturday evening, donations of more than $47,000 for the day had been tallied.

That number did not include a stack of checks still to be counted or the $10,000 four-time Olympic gold medal winner Angelo Taylor has promised the school he graduated from in 2006.

“It’s home,” Taylor said. “This school holds a great tradition.”