By Noelle Edwards
nedwards@salisburypost.com
Helping the Less Fortunate Ministries’ name pretty much sums up what it does.
The indoor yard sale on Richard Street in Salisbury provides clothes, furniture and appliances for people who can’t afford to pay retail prices.
The food bank, likewise, provides food for people who can’t afford to buy everything they need.
Teams of Helping the Less Fortunate volunteers fix things at the houses of people who can’t afford a plumber, roofer or other specialist.
People can come to the organization’s building and get free blood pressure checks.
People who are in desperate situations and can’t afford to pay anything can find help at Helping the Less Fortunate, said Executive Director Pam Shaver.
She has helped people find clothes for job interviews and helped women whose husbands have left find basic furniture staples.
And if all goes according to plan, people will soon be able to come to Helping the Less Fortunate for life and job training and even a place to live.
Plans are in the works to start building a Survival Skills Training Center in January, Shaver said.
The center would hold about 100 men and women at its opening. Those people would be homeless and in need of a job.
People would live at the center and during the day take classes and learn skills to get back on their feet.
Founder and CEO Castel Rolle said he sees homeless shelters that turn people out very early in the morning, and those people then have to find places to spend the day, even in very hot or very cold weather.
“The only place they have to go is the library,” he said.
“Or Hardees,” said Shaver. “And then they have to buy something to be able to sit there.”
Rolle envisions a place where people would not be turned out but could stay all day to learn skills they need to find a job and to cope in their own households.
For instance, women would take classes on assertiveness, personal health, nutrition, money management, child management, self-advocacy, legal rights, coping with a crisis, community resources and employment.
Men would take classes on responsibility, employment, finding a job, money management, problem solving, legal rights, keeping a job, health, setting and reaching goals, and leading a family.
A separate curriculum would deal with workplace survival with classes that would help participants discover and develop their strengths, define values, set goals, communicate and resolve conflict, among other things.
Vice president Billie Ozment said she doesn’t know just when the center will open; it will depend on how fast construction moves.
She said KMD Construction owns the land the ministry want to build on, next to the current building, but that the organization is in talks with the construction company to get the land.
KMD will also build the center, Ozment said.
She said profits from the indoor yard sale are going to fund the new building.
Shaver said a monthly bazaar also raises money for the center, and a car wash was also planned to raise money.
“All roads lead to Rome ó whatever it takes,” Rolle said.
Shaver said even once the building is built, the success of the training center will depend on volunteers ó their time and donations but also their ideas.
“We don’t have all the answers,” Shaver said. “I’m not rejecting anybody’s ideas or what they can do for us.” And she said the work of Helping the Less Fortunate will help the larger community.
Teaching people to take care of and provide for themselves means they don’t need support from the government or other agencies.
Rolle said the aim is not just to help people get jobs but to change people’s behavior and thinking.
“Our ultimate goal is to help one another,” Shaver said.