Newberry Elm Street manager is introduced

Article Photos

When Alannah Gabriel returned home to Newberry several years ago after a career in sales and management, she considered herself retired and was not planning to start working again right away.

That changed Thursday, when under a perfect early fall sky and in front of the West End Christian Community Center, the city native was publicly introduced as Newberry's first Elm Street Program manager,

It's a job she earned, according to the speakers at the announcement.

In 2005, Gabriel and other volunteers began developing what would evolve into the Newberry Community Partnership. Through that, they applied for state funding and designation as a state Elm Street Program site for Newberry, the first part of the city to be settled during the colonial era.

Gabriel officially has been on the job since Sept. 8.

The designation comes with $50,000 in annual funding for each of three years, enough to provide the manager a salary and insurance, office supplies and expenses, and money for community projects.

According to Gabriel, the job is "a little bit of everything" and her duties include helping to establish new programs and projects, seeking funding sources and guiding the program toward financial independence of city or state funding.

Gabriel is a fourth-generation Newberry resident who left the area as an adult and pursued a sales and management career, working and living in New York City for 18 years, then Iowa and, before her retirement, Nashville, Tenn.

She said she hopes to be the first "of many" Newberry Elm Street managers.

The designated boundaries of the new Elm Street Program are Lycoming Creek on the east,West Fourth Street on the north, Trenton Avenue on the south and Poplar Street on the west.

The Elm Street office is in the community center at 901 Diamond St.