Carr Central High School closed its doors 56 years ago, but its alumni are still finding ways to give back to the community.

For their last hoorah the alumni voted to give Jacob’s Ladder Learning Center the rest of their funds that were used to host reunions, a sum of $4,692.13.

Representatives from the former Carr Central High School classes met at Jacob’s Ladder Thursday to present the check, including Ethel Pickens from the class of ’53, who said the gift was from one school to another.

“We loved Carr Central High School,” she said. “We loved the school and we want them to love their school like we loved our school.”

Pickens said the Carr Central High School alumni have celebrated joint reunions for the last ten years, from 2004-2014, and during that time the alumni paid for a mural on the floodwall and got a monument installed at their old school.

“Our first one we had more than 700 people, and at our last one we had about 250,” she said. “Our youngest alumni are 74 years old and two years from now we wouldn’t have had 150. That’s what’s happening to us, and we’re not upset about what’s happening to us, that’s just life.”

Many of the alumni do not live in Vicksburg and have a hard time traveling to get to the reunions, Pickens said.

“We’re done with the reunions, but we’re not done with each other,” she said. “We’re going to stay in touch, but we just can’t get here anymore.”

Another representative, Eddie Fowler, class of ’59, explained that the money had been used to pay for venue, food, decorations and other necessities for the Carr Central High School reunions.

“We didn’t want any money left over,” he said, “We all got together and had a meeting to decide what to do with the money, and George Cronia suggested Jacob’s Ladder and everyone agreed.”

Rebecca Busby, a teacher at Jacob’s Ladder, said George Cronia’s daughter, Kathy Conway, is the president of the board of directors for Jacob’s Ladder and her son, Will Conway is a student there.

When Kathy Conway called to tell Busby about the donation, she said she was in shock.

“I was speechless because that’s a really large sum of money,” she said.

Busby said the gift would go into their transportation upgrade account.

“We are trying to get a new bus,” she said. “The bus we have now was donated by the Kiwanis Club when the doors to the school opened. It has been wonderful for us. It served its purpose and served its purpose wonderfully, but we have more students and we are outgrowing that.”

One of the students cannot climb into the bus, so there is a need for transportation that is handicap accessible with a wheelchair lift on the back, Busby said.

“We are so thankful for the generosity of these pretty much complete strangers,” she said. “That they wanted to give this gift to us, we’re just really, really thankful.”