Jubilee Family Development Center marked a new step for its Astronaut Leland Melvin STEM Center on Friday, Sept. 18, with a groundbreaking for an expansion at its Lynchburg, Virginia, campus. Cardinal News reported that Jubilee executive director Sterling Wilder, former NASA astronaut Leland Melvin and supporters including Lynita Spain attended. The project will add five classrooms to a center serving children and adults, making more room for career training, hands-on science and technology, and youth media work.
Plans reported by Cardinal News include five teaching rooms, outdoor gathering and garden space, and an accessible route into the expanded center. Jubilee’s campaign materials identify one of the rooms as the Mark Spain Media Center. The organization says students there will be able to learn photography, videography, podcasting, graphic design, film and audio editing, and journalism.
The added space responds to a practical limit. Interest in the center’s classes has outgrown the rooms available for instruction, Cardinal News reported. The Astronaut Leland Melvin STEM Center opened in 2021. Jubilee’s current program page describes a mix that includes adult skill-building, college classes and certification training in areas such as cybersecurity, construction and building trades, machine trades, graphics and health. Courses are offered through partnerships with Central Virginia Community College and Adult and Career Education of Central Virginia.
Jubilee also makes science and technology part of its youth programming. Its official STEM Center page places STEM projects within the Youth Educational Support program and summer enrichment work. Cardinal News reported that children’s activities connect with the organization’s after-school and summer tutoring. Jubilee says its youth program aims to help students address academic gaps, build on strengths and prepare for Virginia’s Standards of Learning exams. It also describes youth STEM opportunities in the computer lab and with age-appropriate science and technology kits. The expansion will give Jubilee more classroom capacity for this existing mix of youth and adult programs. The public descriptions do not yet state how many additional students or adult learners the expanded center expects to serve.
The Mark Spain Media Center gives one of the new rooms a specific purpose. Jubilee says young people will have a place to practice making photographs, video, podcasts and other media. The room honors Mark Spain, an ABC 13 news anchor. Jubilee’s program page describes how Spain and WSET partnered with the organization on a 2024 Community Counts campaign; the community raised $75,000 to outfit the youth media center. Spain died of cancer in December 2024. At the groundbreaking, his widow, Lynita, spoke about the young people he encouraged and the relationships he built in Lynchburg, Cardinal News reported.
The media room is one part of a broader expansion intended to serve the nonprofit’s existing programs. Melvin, the center’s namesake, also has deep ties to Lynchburg: Cardinal News reported that he was born and raised there and chaired the capital campaign committee. Jubilee’s campaign page lists $1,001,000 raised from 136 donors, while Cardinal News describes it as a $1 million effort. Those figures describe campaign fundraising; neither source says how many additional student places the finished project will provide. The project connects local support to practical places where people can learn, create and prepare for work.
Jubilee says the STEM Center links academic preparation and career planning with hands-on instruction in machining, welding, cybersecurity, and computer networking and repair. It also describes the center as a satellite site for Central Virginia Community College, serving people who may not be able to attend or feel comfortable on a college campus. Jubilee says the training can open routes to advanced skills study, paid internships or entry-level positions; outcomes depend on each learner and are not guaranteed.
Cardinal News reported that classes are expected to continue in the STEM Center while construction is underway. The groundbreaking marks the start of the building work, not a ribbon-cutting for finished rooms. Jubilee expects the expansion to be finished by summer 2027. For current students and adult learners, the reported plan keeps established classes in operation as the new space takes shape.
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