LUMBERTON, NC (WBTW) – The Lumberton Christian Care Center began construction three years ago and Sunday afternoon the center opened its doors for the first time.
Residents joined the City of Lumberton for the ribbon cutting of the new and spacious Christian Care Center.
The new emergency shelter will sleep about 20 people, whether they are homeless, and victims of a disaster, or passing through town and suddenly without money for a place to stay.
Board members say they were in the old building for more than thirty years and it had its wear and tear but the new facility may bring more people.
“We have people not only from Lumberton but from all over the county. We even have people who cars break down over the interstate and don’t have the money for a hotel and that kind of thing. We have people that check out of the hospital but don’t have a place to go. We just minister to a lot of different people,” said Lumberton Christian Care Center Board Member Barbara Andrews.
Leroy Dixon has been the center’s kitchen manager for the center for nearly seventeen years now. He says he’s been looking forward to the new building after working in the old building since 1989.
“When I was in the eighth grade working after school, I washed dishes in that kitchen in 1959,” said Dixon.
After waiting years for the new facility to be complete and to make the move, he is quickly getting settled into a new environment with new appliances.
“I helped pick it out so I love it all,” mentioned Dixon.
And a love for helping those who are homeless get a fresh beginning of their own, even if it starts with a hot meal.
“We feed nearly 100 people a day and I think that might increase with the nicer facility. More people may be more willing to come in,” Andrews said.
Something Dixon says he will be more than prepared for.
“Nothing else to do, I never worked in a factory in Robeson County. I’ve always been cooking and so when you enjoy what you do you stick with it,” Dixon explained.
Barbara Andrews says the main focus of the center is to feed people, so the kitchen is the most interesting room inside the new building.
Dixon says helping feed people wouldn’t be possible without the help of the community.
“If it wasn’t for the volunteers coming in to help every day we couldn’t do it, so our volunteers are very important to this organization,” said Dixon.
The new emergency shelter will sleep about 20 people and you don’t have to be homeless to come by.
More than one-million dollars in grants and donations helped fund the project.
The center will begin serving in the new facility December 21, 2015.
