Addition of Store and Women & Children’s Center

The Art On A Mission Store was opened at Tanglewood Mall to give the Mission the opportunity to sell the antiques and collectibles that came into the Thrift Store at a higher price. To make the store consistently viable, the addition of local artists’ works on a consignment basis was also added to this location.

Zoning problems delayed the building of the proposed Women and Children’s Center. In retrospect, this allowed time to build the clinic, the new learning center, the pottery studio and the Rescued House at 402 Bullitt Avenue.

At a construction cost of 4 million dollars, the Women and Children’s Center was completed in 2005. Pledges were raised to completely pay for the building in the same year. The first three graduates of the new women’s program completed their program in 2006.

In 2007 the Rescue Mission formed a strategic visioning team representing all the various Mission departments. This team identified that aftercare was a major concern at the Mission. Providing a program to keep in touch with graduates and their families and providing transitional housing for graduates as they re-entered life outside the Mission were considered paramount. In 2008 property was found at 6th and Bullitt and was purchased for just under one million dollars. Plans were made to convert three of the four buildings at the site into aftercare apartments. Plans were drawn for three of the buildings on the site and construction began on two of the properties in the Spring of 2009.

The medical clinic, in 2008 added a portable dental clinic and staff soon realized that a larger facility was needed to house medical/psychiatric and dental clinics that could operate simultaneously to accommodate the great number of patients who needed help. Renovation of an existing building on the Mission’s campus was started in the latter part of 2009 to accommodate the new clinic. A generous donation by a board member enabled 2nd helpings, a new earned income project that included a high end resale retail shop, an art gallery and a café was opened on Williamson Road (2 blocks north of the Civic Center) to raise the additional operating funds the new expanded clinic would need.

Using its “Conviction Based Development Strategy”, the Rescue Mission will always be looking for better ways to address human suffering in the name of Christ. Once a need is perceived the team investigates if there is anyone else better qualified to address that particular need. If no one is found, the team designs a program to address the need, then designs a strategy to fund the program. This three part process (all done prayerfully) is the way the Rescue Mission determines when to expand or increase its scope.