Christian Community Life Center page 2

Christian Community Life Center page 3

Utilization of CCLC

Day Camp with Community Church

Hurricane Rita hit the Gulf Coast of Western Louisiana and Southeastern Texas on Friday night and early Saturday morning, September 23-24, 2005. The devastation to Lake Charles, Beaumont, Port Arthur, and other coastal towns has been well documented in the media. Just before Rita hit the Gulf Coast, Katrina destroyed much of New Orleans, Biloxi, and Gulfport, and the plight of those left behind were portrayed graphically in the media. As a result of these two media portrayals, the damage inflicted by Rita on Newton County has largely been a non-event for the media. Yet, a category 2 hurricane went up the Sabine River destroying many structures in the path in both counties. Newton County is a very poor county. Unemployment has been double digits for many years. Hundreds of people live in substandard housing, and some smaller communities look like third world countries that are seen in the news media. The poor of Newton County people suffered the most, and continue to suffer from loss of income, resources, lack of medical care, and housing. The obvious first step in restoration was the repair and reconstruction of damaged housing for those who did not have the resources to accomplish this task on their own. The first phase of emergency disaster relief is in progress in Newton County. Many emergency and urgent repairs have been accomplished thanks to the assistance of various government agencies and faith based organizations, especially the Mennonite Disaster Service. First United Methodist Church has coordinated, funded, managed, and publicized the ongoing restoration work described in this website under Rita Restoration, which is the most complete and documented story of the Rita disaster relief in Newton County.

However, none of the work described in the “Rita Restoration” pages explicitly delineates the human side of the equation. People’s lives are a mess. Our goals, up until now, have been to meet immediate physical needs. Unfortunately, the local churches, like the community they minister to, are poor and struggling to keep their doors open.

Our church’s concern is especially for the disabled seniors, disadvantaged and at risk youth, preschool children from below poverty level families, and those unable to find meaningful employment because inadequate educational attainments. Our Rita relief efforts need to be broadened to better handle these human issues in a more concerted and intentional way. While our church has been deeply involved in these efforts from the first day after Rita, we need to expand our resources and efforts to be better able to bring healing to many people. It is hard to get a definitive, quantitative measure of the impacted people. How many are hurting? How many at Risk youth will become more disillusioned and turn to crime? How many children will be irreparably damaged by the ongoing suffering caused by Rita coupled with extreme poverty? How many people will be ripped off by contractors? How many will be befuddled by the various government programs that are well intentioned to help (I know this number is very high from personal experience with case management) and give up and let their lives slip even further into hopelessness? To some extent, just working with the residents of Newton County for that last12 months, I know the answers to some of these questions. The pictures on the church website tell a partial story. Look at the faces of those who are waiting (and waiting and waiting) for help; then look at their faces when a church group shows up to put a new roof on their house. Maybe somebody really does care about them. Of course, a roof over their heads is just the beginning of their needs.

First United Methodist Church has a partially completed building that survived Rita with zero damage. It is a well constructed metal building, and it has been our intentions to finish it as a Family Life Center with a gym and a large education wing with kitchen facilities. We are now completing the interior of this new building in a manner that will be consistent with meeting the human and social needs of the Newton Community. This building will house many programs and activities that will be a continuation and expansion of our current Rita Disaster Relief efforts. We hope to meet the human and social needs that are not being met very well. The large gym type space will be used for recreation. It will be a flexible, multi-purpose space that can accommodate many types of exercise and sports activities. It will be used by the Methodist Christian School as playground space for the children, by at Risk youth, seniors, and families. There will be planned activities and after school time for Youth to have a place to go and receive attention and achieve peer group acceptance in a comfortable, risk free,  environment. This facility will also be convertible to a theater for educational and entertainment events of various types.

We will provide counseling and educational opportunities and we will continue our efforts in the area of Rita Relief Case Management. Currently there are organizations in Newton doing partial case management. Some are trying to help people cover electric bills, some are trying to help steer people through FEMA and insurance channels, some are trying to manage restoration of homes, etc. This expanded facility will give these organizations the resources to consolidate the case management, intake, counseling, housing services, and assistance in one place. At the same time, educational, counseling, employment training, information referral, special services for at Risk youth, planning, program development, and recreational supervision and planning can be greatly enhanced/introduced. This facility will be available to various organizations that meet the requirements for providing services to the community for achieving self support, family functionality, eliminating institutional needs, and general self-sufficiency. For example, organizations that utilize a 12 point program for breaking an addiction to drugs would be given free access to the facility.

The Christian Community Life Center Committee of First United Methodist Church Newton is in charge of the overall project, including funding, planning, management, and liaison with various agencies and entities. The committee chair is Molindia Henson, and the rest of the committee is composed of Paul Hughes, Kathleen McCorquodale, Anne Bean, Sarah Richardson, Jimmy Low, Jonnie Miller, and Anne Bean. The work began on earnest on Monday, August 28, 2006, under the direction of Construction Manager, Paul Hughes. By early Friday morning, a good bit of the initial framing was completed by Danny Medley, Robert Anthony, and Bobby Anthony, Jr. 

The following pictures were taken on September 1, 2006.

Paul Hughes and Lee Selman... supervising?

By September 5, the framing of the rest of the classroom area and the gymnasium areas were in progress. These pictures were taken on September 5. The framing was completed by September 8. These guys are amazing workers.

By September 30, 2006, much of the electrical work was completed so that insulation installation could begin.

The next big step is the electrical work, which was done by Daryl Wood.

On October, 10, 2006, the Christian Community Life Center building committee met to review progress (which is extraordinary) and review financials. This is the brain trust of the project!

The following pictures were taken on October 12