Washington Burns: Giving A Center To The Community

(CBS 5) --  A former convent in West Oakland is now a vibrant community center, thanks to the passion of Dr. Washington Burns.

"I came from an area where there was no admission to the museums or art galleries or the symphonies to African Americans in Mississippi in the years when I grew up, so I was really deprived," recalls Dr. Burns who now makes his home in the Bay Area.

Washington Burns and his brother moved to Oakland from the South in their teens, it wasn't until years later, after graduating from UC Berkeley, finishing medical school and having his own family that he realized how much he missed.

"There was more to education than just reading, writing, and arithmetic," Burns says. "All of the cultural enrichments that my children had going to the Berkeley public schools, I didn't have."

So when his brother became a pastor at St. Patrick's church in their old Oakland neighborhood, he called on Washington to help him transform the vacant convent across the street, and create something positive in the community.

The Prescott-Joseph Center for Community Enhancement grew to offer classes in the arts as well as free health, education, and social services. It started taking more and more time away from Burns' medical career.

For 34 years, Washington Burns was the director of the clinical laboratory at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. He retired 6 years ago, but his vision for this community center in West Oakland has him working harder now, than ever before.

"I'm going to die on my feet," he says. "Why play golf when there's so much more productive stuff to do?"

High School friend Joe Debro, is a board member for the community center.

"He's a remarkable man, a man who works 40, 50, 60 hours a week and subsidizes the operation as well as give his time," says Debro. "He's totally committed to it."

Damaris, who takes a weekly art class, is one of the many people who benefits from all of Dr. Burns' work.

"I am looking at life differently now, I'm going to come out with a lot of good tools to help me," Damaris says. "I believe there are angels in this building, that when you come in here they don't let you leave. Dr. Burns is the biggest angel of all."

For creating a center that is bringing the arts and hope to his community, this week's Jefferson Award in the Bay Area goes to Dr. Washington Burns.

For more infnformation on the Prescott-Joseph Center for Community Enhancement, see:
http://prescott-joseph.org/

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