Photos By Tommy Stafford : In spite of the rain, APO volunteers from UVa's only co-ed fraternity, returned Saturday to continue work at RVCC.

Volunteers from APO work on that will be a covered picnic area at RVCC.

Inside, in the gym, crews were busy assembling pieces that would be installed outside.

RVCC was chosen as the fraternity’s Fall service project, which means the Community Center is getting lots of needed repairs and improvements, like a courtyard, painting the entrances, putting in a sidewalk for the treasure chest and more.

Here a volunteer chisels on one of the posts to be used in the construction.

APO members assemble trusses that will be used in the roof of the outdoor pavilion.

The group will be back to finish up the project in the coming days as weather permits. Thanks to APO for this fantastic and valuable contribution to RVCC!

Erin Hopke, pointing, gets help from RVCC board member, Bill Howard, in preparation of APO

The Rockfish Valley Community Center in Afton just got one big present. “It’s like Christmas! It’s great, just overwhelmingly great,” says Margaret Claire, an RVCC board member. Starting this weekend, members of UVa’s Alpha Phi Omega – The University’s only coed service fraternity – began work on the old Rockfish School building as part of its community service project. The site was chosen as the fraternity’s Fall service project, which means the Community Center will get lots of needed repairs and improvements. “They’ll be putting up a picnic shelter. They will build picnic tables. Put in a garden for the seniors. A courtyard. Painting the entrances, putting in a sidewalk for the treasure chest,” Margaret adds.

Briana Evans, a second year student at UVA, holds the ladder for Erin as she removes old storm windows from the building.

“Every Saturday we do a community service project in various places There are about 75 of us and almost everyone tries to go to a community service project. We do 8 hours a semester,” explains Briana Evans, a Foreign Affairs and Anthropology major at UVa. This first Saturday was spent prepping the building for the bigger work to be done next weekend on October 25th.

Margaret Claire of RVCC, right, sites the area where a new picnic pavilion will be built, with one of the APO volunteers.

“I just figured they would pick one thing, if we got chosen. I got called back and were told we had been chosen. Basically everything we had shown was chosen to be done, all of it,” Margaret enthusiastically says.

Andrew Fisher, a 4th year student at UVA and Julia Cooper, a 3rd year student, scrape paint from the back of the RVCC.

Next week nearly 100 APO members will descend on RVCC to knock out the planned projects.

Pretty nifty. Congrats RVCC!