Cabell Brand Center

A History of the Cabell Brand Center

The history of the Cabell Brand Center is reported on its web page. But, briefly, it was established in 1986 by Cabell Brand and Roanoke College to give students there and in nearby colleges an opportunity to study poverty and environmental issues. Over 500 fellowships have been awarded with funds coming from volunteer contributions.

The Center was managed for nearly 20 years by Nineveh Wygal who died in 2008 after having worked for Cabell Brand for 54 years. The Center had been managed earlier by Dave Herbert and Martin Skelly, now by David Crawford of Rainwater Management Solutions.

When the Center was relocated from Roanoke College, the Poverty Library was given to Washington and Lee University, the Environmental Library was divided between Roanoke College and The Roanoke Higher Education Center, the Stuart McGuire history was deposited in the Roanoke College archives, and Cabell Brand’s personal memoirs are in the Virginia Military Institute archives.

E. Cabell Brand

The president of the Cabell Brand Center is Mr. David Crawford, founder and president of Rainwater Management Solutions Inc. Please access their web page at http://www.rainwatermanagement.com/  where you can learn more about saving and storing rainwater to help with the global fresh water shortage and reducing storm drain runoff.  The non-profit Cabell Brand Center has received grants to help with this process.  Full information is available on www.cabellbrandcenter.org, including a detailed Rainwater Harvesting Manual designed and being used by the State of Virginia.

All of the income from the sale of this book goes into the non-profit Cabell Brand Center to promote and work on these specific issues. We hope that there will be enough funds from royalties to have more student scholarships and fellowships in pursuit of the goals of the Cabell Brand Center.

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    Today the center’s focus continues to be poverty,

the environment, and peace. On environmental issues,

we’re using the shortage of fresh water as an example

of local action by saving rain water, storing it for

productive use, and establishing ways further to reduce

storm-drain runoff. The shortage of drinking water is a critical problem for the world today and has fostered conflicts in many areas, even in the United States. This problem will be multiplied as the oceans rise and as dislocation of millions of people intensifies in coastal areas.

As I write, the current estimates are that within 100 years the oceans will rise much more than 1 meter. This puts areas such as Bangladesh, which rests only 1 foot above sea level, in desperate straits.