CLARKSBURG, W.Va. (WV News) — Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., visited the Kelly Miller Community Center Thursday to see how organizers plan to use $600,000 in federal funding she helped secure.

The funds will be used to construct commercial-grade kitchen facilities adjacent to the center’s new food bank, according to Jim Griffin, chair of the West Virginia Black Heritage Festival Board.

“We worked [with] them and asked them what kind of need (they have), where we might be able to direct some federal spending,” Capito said. “We worked together and got them $600,000 for a commercial kitchen, which will really help with community groups, community meetings, weddings and whatever they might have here.”

The West Virginia Black Heritage Festival took ownership of the former Kelly Miller High School building in 2017 and have relied on network of dedicated local volunteers to rehab and renovate the facility.

“This is all volunteers,” Griffin said. “It’s been a daunting task, but it’s been rewarding.”

While there is still much work to do — including a costly renovation to the building’s former basketball facilities — the former school now contains its own library, a gym, a computer lab, fully outfitted classrooms, spaces for hosting community events and the studio of local martial arts school Clarksburg Hung Gar.

Renovating the basketball facilities is likely to be “a pretty big project,” but she hopes to able to secure additional congressional funding for it in the future, Capito said.

“They’ve done so much and been so resourceful,” she said. “We look forward to working with them and hopefully being able to direct some dollars for historic buildings and others from the federal dollars into the Clarksburg area.

Renovating the old gymnasium is estimated to cost around $750,000, Griffin said.

“We’ve been quite successful in the past, and we’re being positive. We think we’re going to get it,” he said. “We think that what we’re doing is of great need to the community — they’ve been supportive, and I think that we’ll get it.”

Those interested in volunteering at Kelly Miller Community Center, located on Clarksburg’s E.B. Saunders Way, should call 304-629-6777 or visit its Facebook page.

“We’ll gladly welcome them down to help us,” Griffin said.

After leaving the Center of Thursday, Capito traveled to Pierpont Community & Technical College to tour the Caperton Center and later visited the facilities of Stockmeier Urethanes.