The Rock puts down roots
Local church to open new facility, announces plan for tour bus to aid local homeless population
A local church will open the doors to a new facility in the Foothills this weekend and will announce an initiative to bring a mobile unit to Yuma that will serve to aid the local homeless population.
The grand opening of The Rock Church’s new facility, located at 2555 E. Gila Ridge Road,will be held from 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. on Sunday. The event is free and open to the public.
Pastor of the Rock Church Paul Mondragon said the opening also happens to coincide with the church’s “birthday month” and so cake will be served at the event.
“The first service we ever had started in my home in 2014,” Mondragon told the Yuma Sun in a phone interview. “The church grew, which is the way it’s supposed to happen. We started looking for a place and we ended up at Kofa. We were at Kofa for three years as a portable church.”
“That is always very complicated because you can’t have a base of operations — you can’t have an office space, you can’t do a lot of things,” he added. “Beginning last year probably in March we started looking for a permanent home and we looked at various buildings.”
After learning about a property in the Foothills from one of the members of the church, Mondragon said he and his team went to investigate.
“When we came we realized this was a great place and we got to talking to agents and the owners,” he noted. “It took a little over a year for us to be able to purchase it.”
The facility is 31,000 square feet and has dedicated spaces for children, offices, rooms for Sunday school, large parking areas, a space that can be used as a rental for local nonprofits and 16,000 square feet of warehouse area “that can be used as a future sanctuary,” Mondragon said.
Additionally, an overall initiative for the Rock Tour Bus concept to help the homeless will be announced at the grand opening.
The Country Club RV donated a 38-foot motor-home that is to be outfitted with a washer and a dryer, showers, changes of clothes, food supplies, bottled water, hygiene supplies and more.
“The Rock Church had this vision for a few years and needed help getting it off the ground,” Mondragon said in a statement. “When we presented our vision to Country Club RV, they were stirred by it and blessed us with this initial donation. From here, The Rock will now get to work on design, layout, and roll out so that our people can take this bus on the road multiple times a week loving on our city.”
Mondragon explained the Rock Tour intends to visit locations in the Yuma area with homeless populations, such as the North side of town and along the river. It will primarily be run by volunteers, he said.
The church plans to partner with local agencies and wishes to begin collecting supplies to stock and equip the RV as needed.
“We hope to have the Rock Tour Bus retrofitted and then ready to take to the streets before the end of the year” Mondragon said in a statement.
For more information on the Rock Church, visit therockyuma.com or call 928-257-7957.