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To see accurate and up-to-date progress of the group's work, please like and follow us on Facebook. You can find us by searching Annie Lytle Preservation Group. This is where we will be notifying everyone of future volunteer work days and other interesting facts and pictures of School Four. We will no longer be posting progress on here, however, you can still look through our begins to see where we all started! Clicking the picture below will take you straight to our Page.
Yup! You read that right! The time has finally come! We will be having a group volunteer day this Saturday, December 10th from 10AM-2PM. The event is being sponsored by TruHome Realty - First Coast and we are ready for a great turn out. JACKSONVILLE, come out and help save an historic landmark! Be ready to get down and dirty, it is time to show the school some much needed love. If you come to volunteer, you are coming to work, NO PHOTO SHOOTS. You will be signing in before entering the school. Bring gloves, shovels, wheelbarrows, and a pair of clothes you don't mind getting dirt on! Hope to see you there, together, we will save this 100 year old building! If you have any questions, please feel free to message us via facebook!
Long time since we made a post on the website, however, this does not mean we dissappeared! We hace still been working effortlessly to matain the school and the surrounding property. We have secruity at the school every night over the past years. We continue to work on the school and would like to thank you all for your support!
PLEASE go to our Facebook Page at Annie Lytle Preservation Group.
Be sure to LIKE and SHARE our posts to spread awareness of our efforts.
We have received many e-mails asking what we have been doing since summer. There is not an easy answer, but a lot has been going on. The Annie Lytle Preservation Group can not accepted any new volunteers because our hold-harmless agreement forms need to be updated. This is one of the many things we are working on. We would love to bring in all the volunteers we can but we legally cannot. We do not own the building to have that authority. The ALPG is very grateful that we have been allowed to work on the building under these agreements made with the owners and it is very important that we hold true to these rules we have in place.
​Our biggest priority right now is to keep the building secure and the outside looking presentable. To this day, we have managed to continue to do this. Security is there throughout most of the day and night preventing vandals to further harm themselves or the almost century old building. The group still is working on the clean out process, but mind you, a majority of the school has already been cleaned out. Most of what is left is still inside the school because we do not have the equipment to get it to the street.... yet.
We want to remind everyone that this group is still very much alive. Working day and night to keep this building safe and eventually into the hands of someone who can restore it. We ask that you please refrain from asking to volunteer at this point because we simply are not allowed to. As soon as we can, we will let everyone know.
Until then, keep in touch! This group and the community will save this building!!
The month of May was another one for the books!
The award ceremony was
outstanding and it was great for the group to get the much needed recognition.
Most of the Cafeteria was cleaned out, all that is left is the pile we made from emptying out the 2nd floor.
The entire East Wing is now cleaned out as well. This month, the group finished the last room in the wing and the hardest one at that! Check out the previous months work, this room was layered with carpet, tile, wood and more wood! Today, now it is down to its bare concrete awaiting it's renovation!
This month we also got a Facebook page!
Be sure to LIKE and SHARE it so the city can know that this building is not abandoned anymore and that she is LOVED!
... With that being said, Public School Number Four is NOT abandoned anymore!
Please remember that this is private property and that people are working very hard to save it. Eyes are watching the building 24/7. If you are on the property without authorization, you WILL get caught and arrested.
.... And of course, we continue on restoring Room 107! Check out April's issue for more pictures of this project.
Numbers were added to the Chelsea Street Portico to help mock the original and to show it's address!
The group has finally began to clean the floor in the auditorium! Over the years, grass and a "lawn" began to grow. Now it is time to get it out of there, it damages the building and needs to be gone!
Working in the auditorium is more than hard. With virtually no shade and the typical Florida heat, cleaning out this area is nearly impossible. However, where there is a will there is a way and our will is gigantic! We will get it done!
We would also like to recognize that during this month we celebrated our Memorial Day. The Annie Lytle Preservation Group sends our biggest thank you to Heaven for the brave men and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice to protecting the land that we love! God Bless America!
Summer is here! We are well on our way to hotter work days! May is over and we are ready to see the work that will get done in June!
ALSO, as of right now we are still on halt for new volunteers. However, this is issue is being resolved as you read this. STAY TUNED for more information!
Restoring a classroom, finishing the knee wall, and cleaning out more rooms are some of the major accomplishments this month with the Annie Lytle Preservation Group!
In each room, our goal is to remove EVERYTHING to its bare-bone. This is because all of this would be gutted when a buyer comes and renovates the building. We are working to get each classroom and all the hallways down to bare concrete.
HOWEVER, we try and save anything original we can. Everything we throw out is too far gone to save due to years of neglect vandalism.
Room 107: The past is coming back
The Annie Lytle Preservation Group is working on a sub-project to restore a classroom back to what it would have looked like when the school was in operation. We hope that in this process it will inspire a future buyer to see the potential in the place, not just spray paint and deterioration.
This is a picture of Room 107 before we started working. We picked this room because most of the hardwood was still intact and well preserved throughout the years. Eventually we will sand it and fix it to its former glory.
This is Annie Lytle's REAL history!!! Not all the years of damage from spray paint and vandals. This room is not done yet but just what we have done so far speaks volumes.
This is what the portico looked liked on the Chelsea street side. We also added our version of a "Corner Stone"
The above picture and the picture to the right is the College street portico. We are planning on putting the "Annie Lylte School" and the "EST. 1917" on this side as well.
And of course, every month is a constant battle to keep trespassers out of the building. There are NO TRESPASSING signs on every panel of fence yet people still ignore them and get on the PRIVATE PROPERTY. Each month we have to re-board and secure opens made by vandals.
For years, this Keebler Elf Tree plagued the yard with its presence. The ALPG has wanted it gone for a long time now but the old deformed tree put up a fight. This month volunteer, Zach Lunsford, put an end to the tree and finally cut it down. We even saved pieces of this tree to refurbish into some unique pieces of furniture for the building when it becomes restored.
The group is looking forward to May! So much work to do and we are excited for everything to come. This month we will also be winning an award for the efforts we have made at the Annie Lytle School for the past ten years. None of these could be possible without the man who started it all those years ago, the Annie Lytle Preservation Group leader, Tim Kinnear.
The ALPG Wins An Award!
We were able to remove most of the broken and unwanted electrical boxes from the old electrical room out to the street. Sparks were flyin'!
This month, the Annie Lytle Preservation Group continued  to work as hard as they always do.
Some members of the group also worked on cleaning out more of the downstairs classrooms. This one room in particular is proving it self to be more difficult than the other rooms. Under tons of debris, we discovered a gross moldy carpet that needed to be pulled up. On top of this, this room was also one of the rooms that was caught on fire. This made the entire room very dark to work in.
... And of course, all work and no play is never fun for anyone. It would not be a work day if there wasn't some well earned goofing around!
Every week, at least one person walks out of the school with paint on them. This month we have painted over all the unwanted tagging in three of the classrooms!
The fence is constantly being fixed to help keep out trespassers. Remember, this building is PRIVATE property constantly being watched by JSO and ALPG Security. Our group is allowed on site by the owners for strict volunteer purposes to help save the school!
The auditorium also needed some grooming done. Eventually we will scrape this area down to bare concrete, but right now all we can do is keep it cut!
A huge thanks to Hunter from Arlington Lawn and Garden Care! Every now and then, he will come over to the school to mow the lawn for us!
Painting on the Chelsea Street side was also done! Now all that is left is a small portion on the College Street Portico and the Knee Wall is complete!
To view the painting process of the Knee Wall click here.
Many plans for April, but until then, see you at the end of it!! As always thank you for the support with your favorite preservation team, the Annie Lytle Preservation Group!
If we are not at the school, we are at Beach Road Chicken Dinner! If you have not been there you should stop on by!
To say everyone has been covered in paint is an understatement. This month the group has worked hours on end painting over the decades of tagging vandals and trespassers have done to the interior of the school.
Patsy Bryant has made HUGE progress in painting over unwanted spraypaint. Much of what is pictured can be credited to her. Our goal is to take away the attractive nuisance the school has been titled with since abandonment. Covering up all the tags make it less desriable for "photographers"
Soon, we will have each room completely painted. Even the outside brick has been painted over!
Even with all the incredible amounts of painting, the ALPG continues to secure the fence and keep the yard maintained....
... And we even began to clean out another classroom as well.
After a hard days work, The ALPG earned a meal out. Although we are lacking a few, each person in the picture has made this months outstanding achievements possible. In order they are: Faith Victoria, Linley Campbell and her mother, Lisa Marie Frances-Jones, Ivy Buford, Tommy Light, Zach Lunsford, Nick Lunsford, Justin
Kaleel, and our group leader, Timothy Kinnear.
February is a short month, but as always, our group makes great success. We would again like to thank everyone for their support and make sure to come back in March to see more progress!