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Rescue Mission of Mahoning Valley blesses site where it will relocate
Rescue Mission Land Blessing
Video
Now that a ground blessing has taken place, Rescue Mission of the Mahoning Valley officials are looking forward to a ground breaking. Rescue Mission staff and board members, along with city officials and supporters, gathered Thursday at the site of a planned facility to replace the current headquarters on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The 17.5-acre site was blessed by a prayer, and officials unveiled the design of the 50,000-square-foot building that will be constructed at the corner of East Delason Avenue and Erie Street on the city’s South Side.
YOUNGSTOWN
Now that a ground blessing has taken place, Rescue Mission of the Mahoning Valley officials are looking forward to a groundbreaking.
Rescue Mission staff and board members, along with city officials and supporters, gathered Thursday at the site of a planned facility to replace the current headquarters on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The 17.5-acre site was blessed by a prayer, and officials unveiled the design of the 50,000-square-foot building that will be constructed at East Delason Avenue and Erie Street on the city’s South Side.
Video: Rescue Mission Land Blessing
“A new facility became an essential. It’s a necessity today,” said Rescue Mission Executive Director Jim Echement, explaining how plans for the project began more than a decade ago but were stalled by the economic recession.
In the mid-2000s, Echement said, the mission served an average of 65 people per night. Last year, that number had climbed to 135 people.
“We’re stressing that poor, old 85-year-old building beyond measure,” he said.
The new mission, which officials hope to break ground on this fall and begin using next year, will be able to comfortably accommodate 200 people.
It also will allow the Rescue Mission to expand some of its services.
Echement noted, for example, that the new facility will have a dedicated social services segment that the mission might open up to the community at large. Currently, the Rescue Mission has a social services director but relies on partnerships with other agencies to help people staying at the mission with their needs, he said.
The mission has received approximately $7 million in pledges for the $10 million project and is working to raise the remaining $3 million.
Mission officials are hoping to participate in the New Markets Tax Credit program, which “incentivizes community development and economic growth through the use of tax credits that attract private investment to distressed communities,” according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund webpage.
The land for the new building was deeded to the Rescue Mission by the city in 2010. The mission is working to sell its current property and has an interested party that is looking at it.
For more information about the “Move Our Mission” capital campaign, visit MoveOurMission.org or call 330-503-6774.