On Thursday afternoon Barbara Larsen, president of the Kennett Area Community Services board, showed me around the former house that the agency is in the process of renovating on West Cedar Street, next to their current office space and the Food Cupboard warehouse. The building is going to be called the KACS Resource Center and will house offices for the case managers; space for "partner agencies" to provide services to clients (like the Family Benefits Program for Maternal and Child Health); a training and meeting space; and bathing and laundry facilities for clients who are homeless.
The new facility will free up space in the next-door Food Cupboard, doubling its storage capacity.
In the backyard, before the property drops off to the railroad tracks, a garden with raised vegetable beds is planned (and nutrition classes are planned to help clients learn how to use the produce).
KACS executive director Melanie Weiler, whom I'd met at the Empty Bowls fundraiser back in February, said it was pure luck that KACS acquired the building. She knew the property had been vacant for a while, and when saw an inspector there one day she asked about its status. Bingo! KACS snapped it up before it went on the market.
Melanie also told me about a training class that the agency will be holding the evening of Thursday, May 26, at Unionville Presbyterian Church. Called "Bridges Out of Poverty," the program is targeted at "employers, community organizations, churches, social service agencies and individuals" who are interested in helping people learn to move from poverty to long-term self-sufficiency, helping not only the individuals but the whole community.
I looked through some of the materials that will be used in the program, and they seem very sensible, focusing on learning basic, practical life and employment skills that most of us take for granted. It seems to me that this is the kind of approach that people from the Left and the Right could get behind: it's not a matter of giving handouts, but rather helping people to become independent, employed, responsible, contributing members of the community.
Melanie said that as with all of the KACS programs, the goal is to respect clients' dignity and guide them as needed rather than to tell them what to do.
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