Helping faith-based, community groups help those they know best

Published: 2006-06-30

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- It all started with seven members of Hope of Glory Church, a nondenominational Christian congregation in Gretna, La., who met in late 2000 to talk about how to help the ailing community where most of them had grown up. The Hope Center that was born in those meetings is now a thriving, community-based nonprofit organization, offering job assistance to dozens of local residents. Despite the job-market adjustments needed after the terrorist attacks in 2001 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005, it is about to start a construction training program to help fill a critical need in the New Orleans area. The Hope Center also is one of the success stories touted by the Department of Labor, which awarded $4 million in grants to 55 faith-based and community organizations June 28. The Gretna center received a $24,220 grant last year and $74,030 in the latest round of funding. All the funded organizations "are committed to serving the hardest-to-serve," including the homeless, those with limited English, the chronically unemployed, welfare recipients, high school dropouts and former prisoners, said Jedd Medefind, director of the Labor Department's Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

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