CENTER

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Starkville-oktibbeha Consolidated School District at its meeting tonight.

“That was a really good location for us,” Butler said. “It worked well when we had funds to keep it afloat, but you know, things happen.”

She said the city might use the center as a facility for summer feeding.

Despite the outlook, Homestead Education Center Director Alison Buehler plans to raise $60,000 per year for the center for five years. The $60,000 is the minimum amount to keep the center's programs alive, while also providing for utilities and two part-time staff. Buehler said the effort had received approximately $29,000 in pledges so far. Buehler's plan is to get 60 annual partnerships of $1,000 or more per year for five years.

Buehler said her plan would make funding for J.L. King more sustainable.

“It's been run on grants forever, but they end and start again and end and start again,” Buehler said. “Once it builds momentum, it loses it every time on grants. I'm asking the community to support the center, especially since Helping Hands closed.”

She said it would be better to get all of Starkville's churches and civic organizations on board to support the center than jumping from grant to grant.

“If we can commit to that and own it as a community, then I think that place would thrive, and we'd feel a lot of success,” Buehler said.

Donations to The Lighthouse Project will be accepted into August. For more information, Buehler can be reached at (662)-694-0124,

“That neighborhood is next to our largest housing project, and that neighborhood is completely isolated,” Buehler said. “There's no church in there. There's no store except for gas stations. You've got a whole bunch of people who are landlocked basically, with very little way to change their situation in life. The King Center basically provides wraparound services to help people.”

Butler said many of the services offered at the King Center under the Family First grant were also offered at Emerson.

“We're going to keep our program going at Emerson, and a lot of our students who came to the King Center were really not from that community,” Butler said. ”I think that the SMART Bus transportation with the services we provide here, that it's an option for sure, and we hope to expand our services.”