Stacy Smallwood, director of the future Haven Homes Resale Store, and Jeni Eldridge executive director of Haven Homes, stand in what used to be the Bryce's Cafeteria dining room. The building is slated to be remodeled into a resale store next month. Photo by Greg Bischof / Texarkana Gazette.TEXARKANA, Texas — It looks like the Bryce's Cafeteria building near Interstate 30 will soon get a new life.
Plans are for the building, which has been vacant since May 2017, to become a resale store for donated household goods and furniture, possibly as early as mid-September.
All proceeds collected from resales will go to support Haven Homes, a local nonprofit and faith-based organization that provides aid and temporary shelter to women who have recently recovered from drug or alcohol addiction.
Haven Homes also helps men who have recently been paroled from local prisons, Executive Director Jeni Eldridge said.
The resale store will take up 5,000 to 8,000 square feet of the former cafeteria's vacant dining area, said Stacy Smallwood, who will be the resale store's director.
The back of the former restaurant will serve as a drop-0ff point for donated resale items, Smallwood added.
"Our mission is to bring both healing and restoration these men and women as they try to gain their spiritual footing for a new life," Eldridge said.
Eldridge added there are plans to open a Bryce's Pie and Coffee Shop in the former cafeteria's food-line area early next year. The shop is being named as tribute to the former cafeteria, which served area residents and visitors from throughout the region for 86 stellar years. Once installed, the shop could hold as many as 50 guests.
Starting in about 2007, the state began using Bowie County's former Juvenile Detention Center, on U.S. Highway 67 near the Bowie Central Appraisal District office, as a statewide women's recovery center. The center served as a place where women recovering from drug or alcohol addiction would undergo a year-long recovery process before graduating from the program.
In 2013, Haven Homes opened its first women's home near Spring Lake Park, which would help these graduates get their lives organized so they could function and get back on their feet, Eldridge said. The organization eventually built another home in the same location. The buildings collectively accommodate up to 15 temporary female clients.
"Once women graduated from the recovery center, they really didn't have a place to go, so we had these faith based shelters waiting for them," Eldridge said. "During the last seven years, we have had about 150 women, ranging in age from their 20s to their 50s, go through and complete our faith-based program. The ladies have to go through both an application process and an interview process, but so far we've had about an 87% success rate."
The success of the women's program eventually led Haven Homes to open a recovery shelter for men at 1707 W. Seventh Street in September 2019, Eldridge said. The shelter can hold up to 44 clients ranging in age from their 20s to their 50s and who have recently completed their prison sentences and are looking to start a new life.
Besides undergoing spiritual guidance, men also undergo a year-long work therapy program where they learn how to sharpen their skills in construction, landscaping, painting and welding.
"We are looking to hold our first men's graduation from our program next month," Eldridge said. "We seek to reach out to those who are in pain caused by addiction and to let them know that they can have a new life through God's grace — a life full of God's love, joy, happiness and healing."
August 17, 2020 at 11:07AM
https://ift.tt/31XsAZ1
Popular restaurant building soon to reopen as resale store | Bryce's Pie and Coffee Shop expected to open next year - Texarkana Gazette
https://ift.tt/2CPpHAw
Pie
No comments:
Post a Comment