By Emily Banks Wooten
e[email protected]
Mike Fortney with Center of Hope recently spoke to the Rotary Club of Livingston, apprising the local service club of some of the organization’s new ministries. Center of Hope, the Polk County Mission, has grown dramatically since it started back in the 1980s with about five local churches.
“The pantry is job number one,” Fortney said, adding that 125 families had come through on the previous Tuesday. “The numbers are approximately 45% higher than two years ago. And those that are at or below the poverty level in our area – those numbers are huge. We’re seeing a rise in Hispanics, but it’s really no different than the increases in the Caucasian population and Black population.
“The need is extremely high right now, but the shelves are stocked and we have lots of volunteers,” he said.
Fortney also told about Campaign 300, a ministry under the umbrella of Center of Hope. “It’s a financial assistance ministry and 98% of the people we’ve helped this year is with utility bills,” he said.
Fortney said they have approximately 70 active clients in the Cancer Support Group. “We assist cancer patients with getting back and forth, parking and their meds for cancer.”
Another arm of the Center for Hope is disaster response and Polk County Judge Sydney Murphy asked Fortney to be the point person when it comes to heading up the volunteers. They have already worked Hurricane Harvey in 2017 and the tornado in 2020. “We worked about 65 repair projects in the Onalaska area and received lots of donations and supplies,” Fortney said, adding that as the volunteers arrived, the first thing the disaster responders would do is find out what skill set they have.
“We didn’t meet the threshold for FEMA but we got a call from a group out of Nebraska that said they wanted to help. They ended up sending about $35,000 worth of lumber, screws, metal, nails. They sent it and we needed a place to put it. I was driving down the highway one day and saw a building behind Calvary Medical that I’d never seen before. I went over, got the phone number, called the person that owned it and within 10 minutes we had the warehouse.”
Center of Hope also has a bus ministry, with a bus that was donated by Brazos Transit. “We pick up people to take to the center or to take food to them. It’s been a real blessing to us,” he said.
Another new ministry for the Center of Hope is the Emergency Health Board, which they took over last year.
“It is a wonderful, wonderful ministry,” Fortney said. “We see probably 40-plus clients a month, help with prescriptions and medical supplies and recently expanded it to pay for gas to appointments through a voucher system we established with a local gas station.
“Another new ministry is our clothing ministry which began when we received 26 pallets of brand-new clothing from Walmart. We set up a clothing shop and everything is free. We were open half a day several times over summer until the store was depleted. Jonathan, the manager of Walmart, wants to make this an annual thing.
“Another new ministry is the Christmas program which was formerly the empty stocking program. It was a big success last year and we learned a lot. It will happen again. We are fundraising now and will start taking applications soon. The only criteria is they must show proof of Polk County residence. Last year we furnished over 5,000 presents to over 600 kids. It’s not the Center of Hope though. It’s the donors that just come out of the woodwork. There will be some changes this year, but it will still be a ‘shopping’ experience with gift-wrapping. The goal this year is $30,000 and we need volunteers.
“Business is up and numbers are up. That’s not a good thing necessarily, but it’s a great thing the Center of Hope is there,” Fortney said in closing.
Comment
Comments