It was good to learn more at our Dinner and Discussion this week about the needs of homeless families in Durham. We want to inform you of an exciting proposition that is being considered at Duke Memorial that could directly impact this issue. Recently, the Director of Interfaith Hospitality Network (IHN) approached our staff about unused church space that could be utilized for the program’s day center. The IHN program collaborates with many area congregations to serve homeless families. Families stay in a church in the evenings and overnight, with church members serving as volunteer hosts. During the day, some adults work and children who are old enough go to school or daycare. But there is always a day space available for family members who are out of work or have not yet been accepted to a school or daycare. The day space is where activities of daily living occur, including meal preparation, baths and showers are had, and laundry is done. The day center is also where IHN staff work most closely with families to look for employment, affordable housing or child care arrangements.
Duke
Memorial, as many of you know, has been in relationship with IHN as a
host church since the program’s inception about fifteen years ago. IHN
is looking to expand the number of families it can serve from its
current capacity of three to six families, but in order to do so, a new
day center location is needed. Preliminary discussions have begun about
the potential to use currently under-utilized space on the first level
of the Sanctuary building for this day center and the IHN staff office
location. To accommodate this arrangement, some renovation of the area
would be necessary. Many questions remain to be answered before a
decision can be made about this proposal. Our church staff have
indicated that it is imperative that we consider the impact of this
arrangement on the entire body of the church. Is this relationship
consistent with our mission, vision and strategic plan? How would
renovations be funded and what would the ongoing financial impact of a
long term lease arrangement be for the church? How would the presence
of IHN impact current activities and programs of the church, including
the weekday school, AA meetings and youth activities? These and many
other detailed issues are being analyzed by some of our congregational
leaders in collaboration with our church staff.
We believe
this relationship has significant potential to help our church grow in
our outreach ministry and can enable an opportunity to have a direct
impact on the important issue of homelessness. But a proposal will not
be advanced to our Church Council nor any agreement reached until the
important questions noted above have been addressed. We welcome your
feedback as we explore this arrangement. If you have ideas, concerns or
questions, please address them to our church staff, especially Ginger
and Reynolds. A task force has been formed to discern this matter, made
up of Fuller Sasser, Roger Loyd, Tom Chandler, Eric Miller, Leta Loyd,
Katie Garman and John Legge. The members are interested in hearing from
you. We will keep you updated on this issue in the weeks to come.
- John Legge and Katie Garman
No comments:
Post a Comment