New man on a mission
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
By Russ Morgan
morgan@emporiagazette.com
Lee Alderman has been executive director at the Emporia Rescue Mission, in the 1100 block of Merchant St., since taking over the operation in June. He is also responsible for operations at the Abundant Harvest food kitchen, 1028 Whittier St.
He sat down recently to talk about his new job and what he plans for the mission.
Q What is your background?
A I was president of Flint Hills Technical College for three years. I have a Ph.D. in child psychology and education. I’ve done mission work with the North American Mission Board and after that I became a preacher at the Flying J truck stop. I fell in love with serving the Lord, and at that time my wife and I saw a need to expand to helping women and children, so about a year and a half ago we opened Shiloh Home of Hope. Then we decided men in this community were not getting help so we got involved with the rescue mission. From there, next thing I know here I am.
Q Give us some background on the rescue mission.
A The rescue mission was started in 1998 because concerned people in the community noticed there was no place in Emporia for homeless people to take shelter. When the mission opened it had four beds, and since then the number of beds has grown to 20 because of the tremendous need in the community. Right now we have 15 to 20 living at the mission. As part of helping the homeless, we realized the need to feed them, so Abundant Harvest food kitchen gives out 30 to 40 meals four nights a week. We also send a bag of food home with people on Thursday night to help them get through the weekend. We also provide food for the men at the mission, so if you include them, the number of meals we serve goes up to between 40 and 50.
Q What are your goals for the mission?
A Our board has a retreat coming up on Aug. 23 to assess our goals. From research I’ve seen what is needed most right now is emergency shelter for women and children. We have Shiloh, but that is not an emergency, short-term facility, so we definitely need to move in that direction.
As far as the mission is concerned, we would like to expand the men’s operation to include housing and a food kitchen in one facility. This building we’re in now is old and inefficient, the stairwells are narrow, the roof leaks, things like that. To combine into one facility would allow us to consolidate our utility bills and would allow us to run more efficiently.
Q What are the mission’s needs? Do you need donations of food or money? Volunteers?
A Our greatest need is more funding and more donors. We’re in need of financial donations to cover day-to-day costs, because right now we’re barely making ends meet. We’re grateful to Pizza Hut, Tyson, Fanestil’s, Starbuck’s, and all the businesses that have been gracious enough to give us food on a regular basis, and right now we’re good on food. What we desperately need is money, financial donations.
We need skilled volunteers to help with things around the mission. We’ve got donations of roofing and guttering, but we need help installing it. The guys themselves have painted the rooms, restored the hardwood floors and recarpeted some of the floors, but we still need skilled volunteers to help with the things we can’t do.
We could always use paper goods — paper plates, paper towels, toilet paper and things like that. We need dish soap. And bath towels. We check guys in every two or three days and we give each of them a bath towel, so if someone wanted to donate bath towels that would be awesome. We could also use a couple of good refrigerators. And another thing we encourage is when people have leftover food, like from a family reunion, they can bring it by and drop it off here. The guys really appreciate prepared food.
Anyone who wants to make donations can drop them off at Abundant Harvest or here at the mission.
What we’re trying to do is to offer quality care to these guys to restore the foundations of their lives and to help them get jobs and skills, as opposed to just giving them a place to stay. Any volunteers to help us do this would be greatly appreciated.