Transforming Community

Posted: 11/11/05

Transforming Community:
Buckner helps Broadway
Church minister to homeless

By Jenny Pope

Buckner Benevolences

FORT WORTH–"I'm an addict. I'm addicted to crack cocaine," Johnny admitted. It's a short, truthful declaration that establishes the reason for Johnny's motivation–and torment.

”I'm trying to kick this dope habit,” he said.

“I was off of it for six years, but then I had a bad breakup and some other things, and I got back on it in 2000. I'm clean this morning. That's all I can hope for.”

Johnny (left), a crack cocaine addict, helps load groceries at the North Texas Food Bank for delivery to the Baptist Center food pantry, a Buckner Children and Family Services and Broadway Baptist Church collaboration located south of downtown Fort Worth. (Photo by Russ Dilday)

It's a bright, cloudless morning, but the sun hasn't warmed the streets Johnny has called home for three years. He's in line for a sack lunch at the Baptist Center, a daily ritual that lands him a lunch much like the one he receives today–a can of Vienna sausages, a bag of chips and a small package of animal crackers.

Included in his sack is a reminder of why the Baptist Center, a collaboration between Broadway Baptist Church and Buckner Children and Family Services, ministers daily to about 150 of the homeless in the area around the church. On a small photocopied piece of paper is John 3:16.

“This is my breakfast every morning,” he said. “It's a help and an uplift to know somebody cares about us. I see a wonderful smile from everybody up here.”

Johnny found Broadway Baptist Church to be a place where no one cares if your clothes are dirty, where boxcar word-of-mouth is always appreciated, and friendly, familiar volunteers never fail to lend a listening ear.

For nearly eight years, Broadway Baptist Church has collaborated with Buckner Children and Family Services to provide more than 14 social ministries to the steadfastly growing homeless and mental health/ mental retardation community in downtown Fort Worth.

“There's no way to separate the community ministries that are done here from the central identity of the church,” said Dan Freemyer, Buckner/Broadway director of community ministries.

“Our work is due in part to Buckner's focus on children and families and preventative and proactive programs, but its foundation is the leadership of our pastor and other church leaders who challenge the congregation to be the body of Christ, to be hospitable to folks that are usually forgotten.”

Adrain Blackwell, Buckner Lead Life Skills Specialist at Broadway Baptist Church, plays basketball with youth at the Buckner/ Broadway after-school program. (Photo by Russ Dilday)

Ministries include a food pantry and daily sack-lunch distribution, clothing closet, after-school program, Bible studies, a Straight Talk ministry with youth from the Bridge Youth Emergency Shelter, and Agape meal, which serves a first-class dinner to more than 200 homeless people every Thursday evening. On average, Broadway meets the needs of more than 1,000 people each week, said Scott Davis, director of the Baptist Center.

“We're located just south of downtown, a couple of blocks from the Homeless Day Resource Center, where a couple of night shelters are, and just down the street from the Hanratty apartment complex, which is primarily for MHMR clients,” Davis said.

“Missions is a big part of what this church is all about,” said Dan Reed, chairman of the missions committee for Broadway. “This is a low-income area where there are all kinds of places in the general vicinity for those who want to camp out–close to the railroad tracks, under the bridge, wherever.

“I asked a man once how he heard about us, and he said that he was in a boxcar in San Antonio headed toward Fort Worth. Another man told him, 'Hey, there's a church near the railroad tracks with a huge steeple. They'll serve you a good meal there.'”

But it's much more than just food. In addition to the daily sack-lunch and grocery distribution, more than 30 people receive a new pair of shoes, blue jeans, shirts or jackets and hygiene kits through the adult and children's clothing closet on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. And many more receive financial assistance every day of the week.

Nancy Galassi, 20-year member of Broadway, volunteers with different Baptist Center ministries every day of the week but finds the most fulfillment through her work befriending troubled youth at the Bridge youth shelter close to the church. Every Tuesday night, Galassi and others gather with the children to play games and share their stories, but mainly just “be a friend,” she said.

“We try to just encourage them, give them hope. A lot of times they're not open. They'll say, 'I don't believe in God.' If anything, they're angry. But I think once they see and hear what he's really like, you'll see a change in the course of even a few weeks in their attitude.”

Another way Broadway impacts youth is through the after-school program with Pennsylvania Place apartment complex, where a Buckner community ministry program is located.

Tanisha Adams, mother of six and New Orleans evacuee, found refuge at Pennsylvania Place after surviving Hurricane Katrina and seeing her family scattered around the country. Without a car, the after-school program has been an answer to prayers and helped make her life “less hectic,” she said.

“When you're going through something that's so terrible, and you've got people who want to be there and help you get yourself together, and genuinely from their heart want to help, that really matters,” Adams said.

“A lot of (the kids) know what's out there,” said Yolanda Vallecillo, Southside Community Center employee who helps with the after-school program at Broadway. “We hope that coming here will help them know how to handle their lives better and learn to appreciate people and help others.”

Broadway is making changes to be more “preventative and proactive” by developing additional long-term programs, like the after-school program, to have a “big impact on a smaller group of people,” Freemyer said.

One such effort is collaborating with Family Pathfinders, a statewide welfare-to-work initiative that matches families in transition with mentoring teams to become more self-sufficient. Broadway is recruiting church members to serve on these teams and also is developing their own program to work with those who have even greater barriers to self-sufficiency.

“We want to combine the mentoring team approach with more extensive services, like providing rent and job training for those that we've identified through the Baptist Center and Agape meal,” Freemyer said. “We want to focus our time and resources on just a few individuals so that we're doing everything possible to help ensure their success and make a dramatic impact in their lives.”

Another program in the works is a citywide initiative to provide shelter to more homeless people through churches and places of faith. Similar to the Room in the Inn initiative in Nashville, Tenn., the second-largest homeless shelter provider in the city, this project would require extensive collaboration and planning but little investment, Freemyer said.

“It's a vision that extends the ministry of hospitality that we have with the Agape meal and with the Baptist Center,” he said. “It reinforces the idea of the church as a place of refuge.”

The latest attempt to provide a venue of refuge and hospitality was kicked off Oct. 31 as members of Broadway hosted a morning coffee hour with the homeless. Music, cinnamon rolls and tables were set up in coffee-shop style so that people stopping by the Baptist Center for sack lunches or financial assistance could come in and enjoy food and fellowship, Davis said.

“Some of the people who come here are starved for relationships with other people,” Reed said. “They're afraid of the relationships on the street and in shelters. I'm sure this will catch on.”

Building relationships with the community they serve is a huge part of Buckner and Broadway's ministry, which is why so many faithful volunteers give hours of their time to make a difference in someone's life.

From volunteers like Eloise Coffey, who has flawlessly packed lunches in the food pantry twice a week for a year like she's packing them for her own children to Peggy Mitchell, who has set up the Agape meal tables every Thursday for more than three years to create a “safe place” and help others “feel like human beings,” it is evident the members of Broadway are called to missions in action to transform their community.

“I like to think of it as love in action,” Galassi said. “In James it says, 'Faith without works is dead, and what good does it do to tell a brother who's in need of food and clothing to go in peace?' It's only when we really help them that the word carries a message. I've been blessed to be brought up in a home that shared that love, and it's only right to give it back out.

“It's a neat thing to see. It's not just one person. No one person could do all of this. It's a community of people who care and share in what all it entails.”