What is it?
The Baldwin Center is a human services agency in Pontiac, whose mission is to feed, clothe, educate, and empower disadvantaged men, women, and children through more than 25 programs.
Merged with the Grace and Peace Community Church of Pontiac, the Baldwin Avenue UMC become known as The Baldwin Center in 2006,
It is now a major asset of the Alliance for Urban Ministry, and the Detroit Conference’s Ministry Jubilee has a goal of $80,000 in donations allocated for the center each year.
The Center is a soup kitchen and food and clothing distribution center, it offers English as a Second Language classes and G.E.D courses, and it is a haven for children’s camps, educational programs and after-school activities.
How did it start?
Baldwin Avenue UMC was founded in 1917 and in 1981 Rev. Dr. Patricia Meyers suggested the church open its doors to provide for area children and families on a daily basis.
The Family Kitchen opened a year later, in 1983 an emergency shelter program was initiated and in the 1990s a plethora of youth-related centers and programs were installed.
Since 2002 the center has housed a full-time licensed counselor and community organizations have stepped up sponsorship and support.
Lisa Machesky, the center’s executive director the past two-and-a-half years, said she and her staff are always open to finding out what else the Lord might have in the works.
“One of the things we talk about around here…we know everything’s here, all the connections are here, we just have to find them,” she said. “When we come up with something and say, ‘Oh, I need this,” somehow the next day it comes around, or maybe it’s not the next day, but it’s around here somewhere, we just have to figure out where.”
What type of progress has been made?
The first time the soup kitchen opened, 15 people stopped by for a meal — in September alone a total of 5,244 meals were prepared.
In that same time period the Clothes Closet had over 1,000 clients, 26 mothers received diapers and 147 low-income senior citizens had commodity food packages delivered to their home.
“We definitely have seen a huge increase in the need for services as far as our Clothing Closet and the need for rental assistance because of evictions and utility shut-off notices and the number coming into our soup kitchen has gone up quite a bit,” Machesky said. “And we’ve also invested in our youth programs because we know that those are the future.”
Though Machesky said the staff is relatively small, just 14 paid employees (10 full-time), the center has collectively made huge strides, especially in helping children.
At one time the center had a daycare center, but they decided to close that and focus on more educational, spiritual programming for youth.
They now are a state-licensed childcare facility that offers an eight-week summer camp (which had 60 participants in 2010), afterschool reading comprehension tutoring, and meals and basic needs.
Machesky said they are in the business of building relationships and the youth are the impressionable future that will be the face of society.
“We develop relationships with people, we continue on a journey with them; we don’t just give them one-time things,” she said. “We really develop relationships and we know the people and we know their struggles.”
What can churches/people do to help?
As the center has expanded, so has its need for assistance.
Machesky said they receive very little federal money, counting mainly on individual donors, local churches, and special sponsorships.
The FUMC of Birmingham, for instance, sponsored four college-age staff members for summer programming this year and a United Methodist Church from North Carolina did a work camp and helped out around the city of Pontiac too.
Machesky said the center has a dedicated staff member for coordinating volunteer work and there’s an abundance of avenues they seek help from.
“It really varies,” she said. “The other day we had a group of 30 putting our hoophouse in (for year-round gardening) and we had another 13 AmeriCorps students and probably about 20 helping out with a barbecue we did.”
There is also a constant need for clothing, school supplies and basic essentials, which can be seen on the center’s website at www.baldwincenter.org.
The website has a link for online donations and the center’s Ministry Jubilee number is MJ 1150.
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