From car wash to community garden
Albion honors Vera Simpson with new street designation
By Maggie LaNoue, Contributing Writer, July 19, 2026
A larger-than-usual audience filled the Albion City Council chambers July 6 to honor longtime community visionary Vera Simpson. Friends, neighbors, and community leaders came to recognize a woman who saw needs in Albion and quietly went to work meeting them. After hearing heartfelt comments describing her influence on education, neighborhood revitalization, community gardening, Black history, mentoring, and community service, the council unanimously approved an honorary designation recognizing Jefferson Street as Vera Simpson Way.
Because homes are located along Jefferson Street, the designation is honorary and will not change legal addresses. Instead, honorary signs will recognize Simpson’s decades of service to the community.
Mayor Victoria Garcia Snyder explained that the city worked with attorney Cullen Harkness to create an honorary designation that preserves existing addresses while allowing the community to celebrate Simpson’s legacy.
“We will definitely make sure that this is a complete celebration,” Garcia Snyder said.
The recognition reflected a vision that began more than 25 years ago. According to a 2018 article in The Pleiad, Albion College’s student newspaper, Simpson first envisioned a community center in 1999 and purchased the abandoned former car wash at the corner of Austin Avenue and Jefferson Street in 2004 after raising money through community dinners. Volunteers, including Albion College students, helped transform the neglected building into the Vision of Life community center, where children and adults learned practical life skills including sewing, cooking, gardening and reading.
Gwen Tabb, a retired Albion Public Schools administrator who has worked alongside Simpson through Vision of Life, said the organization’s work inspired another act of generosity.
“A family that no longer lived in Albion saw what we were doing and wanted to donate land,” Tabb said. She explained that Vision of Life eventually acquired the property along the west side of Jefferson Street, where Simpson and her sister helped clear the land.
“Vera was out there with her sister, chopping trees until we could get it done, because that’s what she does — would get things done,” Tabb said. That work led to a partnership with Albion Community Gardens.
“We’re proud to say that we’ve given away thousands of pounds of fresh foods and vegetables year round, and that all started from little Vera Simpson,” Tabb said.
Today, Albion Community Gardens continues that mission, describing itself as bringing together the growers of the Albion area to build stronger connections with food and land. Volunteers cultivate vegetables throughout the growing season, using a hoop house to extend the harvest and a tall deer fence to protect crops. A roadside stand near the garden is open many summer mornings, offering fresh produce free of charge, continuing the spirit of neighbors helping neighbors that Simpson envisioned years ago.
Trisha Franzen, a retired Albion College professor of Women’s Studies who helped establish Albion Community Gardens, recalled first meeting Simpson during an anti-racism workshop at Starr Commonwealth.
“Meeting Vera … had a tremendous impact on me,” Franzen said. She later worked beside Simpson in the garden. “She told wonderful stories, very important stories, very important lessons,” Franzen said. “She still is amazing, and I just feel that this is something she really deserves, because she has cared so much about this community.”
Richard Porter, co-founder and president of Albion Community Gardens, described the many conversations they shared while working together.
“I truly believe she’s probably the only person I’ve ever met who is a saint,” Porter said. “She’s a wonderful person. If you don’t know her, take time to meet her.”
The former Vision of Life building continues to serve Albion at the corner of Austin Avenue and Jefferson Street. Today, it houses There’s Enough, a nonprofit organization that accepts donated clothing and household goods and shares them freely with families in need. Behind the trees farther down Jefferson Street, Albion Community Gardens continues to produce fresh food on land made available through the vision and determination of residents who gathered to celebrate.
The honorary designation of Vera Simpson Way recognizes more than a street. It honors a legacy that began with one woman seeing a need and deciding to do something about it, a legacy that continues to grow and serve through organizations, volunteers, and neighbors helping neighbors throughout Albion.
