By Brian Blackwell, Message Staff Writer
MONROE – Under construction for the last seven months, a new cottage — the first in 40 years — is ready to be unveiled according to Louisiana Baptist Children’s Home President and CEO Perry Hancock.
Designed to provide trastional living for women and their children as they prepare for independent living, the cottage is scheduled to be dedicated April 22 at 10:30 a.m. Hancock informed trustees as the Home’s spring board meeting.
The HomePlace Cottages, which are located at Martin Village, provide homeless women and their children housing for up to one year at no cost to the residents.
While there, the women receive training for a high school equivalency degree and are given life and employment skills training through the Christian Women’s Job Corps.
Two more cottages are planned for the near future as additional funds become available.
Proceeds from the Brenda Hall Abney Golf Classic, sponsored by Roy O. Martin Lumber Company in Alexandria, is the major funding source for the cottages.
Hancock said he had received numerous comments about the positive impact the HomePlace ministry has made on the women.
“Many of our churches are providing support for the women,” Hancock said. “Several employers from the area are providing jobs and our women are gaining the confidence and a sense of independence that they need.”
In other news, Hancock updated trustees on the renovation that will begin soon on Peace Cottage. This cottage will receive new flooring, an updated kitchen and the removal of paneling inside the home.
Each cottage serves as a home for five to seven children and two house parents.
Once work on these cottages is completed, all eight residences built in the 1970s will have been updated.
Grace and Feazell cottages were the first to receive renovations in 2013. Since then, Joy, Rucker, Love, Hope and Faith also have been renovated.
Hancock also shared an update on foster care and adoption efforts by the Children’s Home. Currently, the Children’s Home has social workers in Baton Rouge, Monroe, New Orleans and Shreveport.
In 2015, the foster care and adoption program served 219 children, including 85 off-campus. The program began three years ago.
On April 8-9, the Children’s Home along with several churches and faith-based organizations from throughout the U,.S., will host the Empower to Connect Conference simulcast in locations throughout Louisiana.
Those locations along with registration information can be found at connect127.org.
The two-day conference is designed to help adoptive and foster care parents, ministry leaders, churches and professionals better understand how to connect with “children from hard places” in order to help them heal and become all God desires them to be.
