By Chris Starr

What began as a buying club for people who wanted reduced food prices has flourished into a community center offering job referrals, budget counseling, assistance for people who are eligible for Social Security benefits and other programs for the needy.

The “Freedom Mechanicsville Community Center,” located at the corner of Georgia Avenue and Ira Street, is run by volunteer help from St. Paul of the Cross Parish, community volunteers and graduate students in social work from Atlanta University.

“People need someone they can trust,” says Mrs. G.L. Toomer, the guiding light who is responsible for much of the center. “We’ve always had the faith that we can do it,” she added, “and more importantly we have tried to share that faith and respect with the people who come to the center for help.

The “faith and determination” that began the center just blocks from Atlanta’s stadium, is shared by the many volunteers who donate their time to the running of a budget store that sustains the center’s service programs.

Begun February, 1970, the center has operated with revenue from its clothing store and a grant from the Passionist fathers. Father Richard Leary, C.P., a parish priest at St. Paul of the Cross and the center’s chaplain, has been with the center for three years.

Father Leary said he considers it a fulfillment of his corporal and spiritual duty to work in the secular pursuits of the center. “I think my chief contribution is priestly – a church that has a spiritual presence. The poor have the Gospel preached to them. People ask me to pray with them in crisis situations, and I visit them in the hospitals, jails, courts, their homes and the elderly at the time of their death. This is a great opportunity for a healing ministry.”

The center is also receiving the expertise and enthusiasm from graduate students at Atlanta University. The University’s School of Social Work places first year students at the center as part of an internship required for a masters degree in social work.

The work of the students is geared toward helping the volunteers in setting up community organization and case work in housing, food and credit problems. The students also act as advocates between agencies and the people the agencies serve.

Ms. Joanne V. Rhone, an assistant professor of social work at Atlanta University, is responsible for placing students at the center and said students who have worked there have profited a great deal from the experience.

“But the most beautiful experience has been the opportunity to work with Mrs. Toomer, whose philosophy and principle are geared to giving people a sense of responsibility and dignity. Mrs. Toomer has set up accounts for people at the thrift store and people pay what they can. If they are not able to pay, she will perhaps give them what they need or have them help her fold clothes or other needed jobs. She is giving people a sense of dignity – not a hand out.”

The center, now located in an old house in one of Atlanta’s poorest neighborhoods, is soon to move into a new building that will include a thrift store, chapel and office space for counseling services. The new building has been paid for at each phase of construction and the local contracting firm doing the construction has hired many neighbors of the center to help build, not just in a physical way, but in what Father Leary called, “Spiritual values that are bettering the quality of life in Mechanicsville.