Lexington charity says new location will allow it to help more families in need
A nearly 50-year-old nonprofit in Lexington is moving, hoping a bigger space will allow them to expand their capacity to serve community members in need.
Mission Lexington has chosen a new location that will allow the service organization to almost double the size of its current headquarters on Harmon Street a block north of East Main Street. Mission Lexington has acquired an undeveloped tract for the new building at North Lake Drive and Conner Road, CEO Amy Reeves announced Tuesday at a business breakfast hosted by the Lexington Chamber of Commerce.
The new location is across North Lake from Wingard’s Market, and adjacent to Pilgrim Lutheran Church, one of four area churches that came together to found a charity to serve needy residents of Lexington County in 1978.
The expansion is necessary because as the population of Lexington has exploded in recent years, so has the number of people in need of help paying the bills and keeping their families clothed and fed, Reeves said. Mission Lexington has reached the limits of how much donated material it can handle and how many people it can comfortably serve at its current location.
Additionally, when people come into the center to speak to a member of their social services team in the current location, they are often meeting in a small yet open space where they might have to discuss embarrassing or sensitive needs in front of their children.
It’s important Mission Lexington’s clients feel like they have confidentiality so service providers can get a full sense of the family’s needs.
“They will have more privacy when they come in” at the new location, Reeves said. “We have people disclosing domestic violence, child abuse, a lot worse things than anything I went through.”
Reeves knows how needed a service like Mission Lexington is. Before she became the organization’s CEO, she was a divorced mother of young children tasked with juggling bills and responsibilities. She still remembers when she and her kids came home one night and found the power had been switched off.
“Fortunately, they were still at the age where it was fun to go sleep at grandma’s house,” Reeves said.
She wishes she had the courage then to take advantage of the services Mission Lexington offers. The charity meets 40,000 needs a year, Reeves said, including some individuals who may have multiple needs. The nonprofit annually pays out more than $70,000 in housing assistance, and $15,000 worth of utility bills. It distributes $2.2 million worth of groceries at its food bank every year, and around 60,000 clothing items, shoes and linens from its thrift store.
The current Mission Lexington location is 14,000 square feet, housing 31 staff and around 200 weekly volunteers. The new location will expand to 25,000 square feet, Reeves said. That will give Mission Lexington more space to handle the community’s needs.
The CEO remembers when a longtime volunteer passed away, and his family said they wanted to donate all his old furniture. Staff didn’t want to turn down a donation, but fretted about where they could store a house worth of furniture.
The future home of the mission will provide the additional space the mission will need to meet its clients needs for at least another 50 years, Reeves said. That’s important when an unforeseen change in circumstances can leave so many in need of help.
“Anybody can hit a crisis point,” Reeves said.
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