Groundbreaking set for women and children center in Evansville
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The Evansville Rescue Mission will break ground this week on a new facility to support women and children in need, and the organization is continuing a fundraising effort to support the project.
The Susan H. Snyder Center for Women and Children will serve as an emergency shelter for women and children experiencing homelessness, but Executive Director Tracy Gorman says there will be a bigger focus on programming to help those receiving services get back on track.
“On any given night, there are over 200 homeless women and kids in this community,” Gorman said in an interview with our partners at WEHT-TV. “And we just felt like it was time for us to step up and bridge that gap and meet that need.”
When the project was first announced earlier this year, plans called for about 30 apartment-style spaces for small families, as well as smaller “pods” for women who do not have children with them.
“We’ll be able to have education and child care,” Gorman said. “We’ll be able to do all the things that she’s gonna need us to do for her so she can get back on the track she needs to be on.”
The Evansville Rescue Mission is looking to raise $9 million for the project, which involves renovating a vacant building at 1400 Professional Boulevard, just north of I-69 in Evansville.
Gorman said the organization is about halfway toward that goal, which will support more than just the renovations.
“We want to be able to function for the first two or three years without being a drag on the rest of the Rescue Mission,” he said. “So, we’re raising funds to not only get this beautiful building going but also to be able to have operational costs covered for the first couple of years.”
The groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for Thursday at 2 p.m. at the site of the new center.
You can watch the full interview with Tracy Gorman from our partners at WEHT-TV here.