Gathering Pointe Community Center opens in Perkasie
Perkasie resident Ed Curry was driving to his children’s school one day and passed a sign that caught his attention.
“Is that a for sale sign?” he asked his kids. It was. Curry dropped his kids off at school, hurried back to the building at 430 S. kinth St. in Perkasie and walked into what used to be a church. The lights were on and the door was unlocked, but there was no one there. After a “self-tour,” Curry thought, “This is it. This is home.”
But Curry wasn’t exactly planning on moving in.
He and fellow board members Keri Weiss, Kevin Cripe and Ron Jones (also the head counselor) have opened Gathering Pointe Community Center, which offers counseling sessions, “life training classes” and meals from its soup kitchen. The center opened for the first time Tuesday, Oct. 23, for people to sign up for counseling sessions.
Back in April, they moved in. With the help of about 20 volunteers, the board members began painting, gutting and cleaning the center.
The one hiccup they had was that two weeks after the board members received permission to use the building, the basement flooded. The entire basement, which will house the soup kitchen, had to be gutted.
Besides that one piece of bad luck, the nonprofit community center has had some generous donors already who have given money and free services.
Faith Baptist Church in Sellersville owns the building, but the church supports the center by letting Gathering Pointe use the building.
“This is not a church,” Curry stressed. “But it is a faith-based organization — 100 percent.”
Everything the center offers is free: the counseling, meals from the soup kitchen and life classes.
At the counseling center, people can talk about addictions, conflicts, depression, finances, pre- and post-marital issues and sexual abuse. The center has about nine counselors, including the four board members, and they offer non-professional biblical counseling.
The lay counselors have been trained for about a year and a half, and they will continue their training with monthly sessions.
The three-story center also has a resource area where people can check out counseling books. Children of those getting counseled will also have space there where they can be monitored by other counselors.
Life training classes will be held in the center’s auditorium and will start in February. The topics covered range from marriage to parenting, financial and debt stewardship and addictions. According to the center’s brochure, the classes will meet once a week for six or eight weeks, and participants will have to register beforehand.
The soup kitchen is not finished, but it will give those in need about one to two meals a week. Curry guessed the kitchen will serve about 50 to 100 people per meal.
Some people may think poverty and hunger only affect those in urban areas, but the center’s brochure offers data from the Quakertown Food Pantry on the large number of people who use the Quakertown center’s food services. According to the brochure, the pantry gave food to 14,267 people in 2010, and in 2011, the number grew to almost 19,000.
Curry said that the center will not serve as a recreation center or as a shelter. However, counselors will try to help direct those who need to find shelter to a suitable organization.
“People need help and may not know where to find it. It might not be help that we can give, but we’ll direct you to where you need to go,” Curry said.
The center completely relies on donations — it receives donations from individuals, businesses and from church partnerships. Curry said his goal is to have 150 donors give A25 per month.
“Monthly support is a big need,” Curry said. “Our [needz will be a perpetual need from day one.”
The center still needs phone, air conditioning and security systems.
Though the center does not have a specific deadline of when it plans to be completely done with construction, Curry said he would like to have a grand opening ceremony in the future.
For more information about the center and its services, visit the center’s website at www.gatheringpointe.org.