By Susan Redden
sredden@joplinglobe.com
CARTHAGE, Mo. — For the past six and a half years, Brian Bisbee’s work area has been any place he happened to be inside the former Carthage Crisis Center.
After a move completed last weekend, Bisbee and his wife, Marilyn, who share director duties, have office space in the new center, plus far more space to serve homeless people.
“On Saturday night, it was really amazing to be able to sit down and eat a meal in a dining room that had enough space for everyone,” Brian Bisbee said.
Center residents and volunteers moved on Saturday to a 43,000-square-foot building at Main Street and Central Avenue. The center building, donated by Leggett & Platt Corp., replaces quarters that were crowded into a former filling station at Fourth Street and Lyon Avenue.
Amber Hon has lived at the center with her two children for nearly three months. She serves as an assistant cook there and says a big new kitchen has made it a lot easier to prepare a meal.
But the big change, she said, is that she and her children now have much more living space, plus a separate bathroom.
“Before, we were all crammed up,” she said.
The former 16-bed center was often at capacity. The new center has five family rooms, space to house 15 men and eight women, areas for seven men and four women who are in transition to independence, plus room for staff members. There also is space for counseling and training in areas such as life skills and financial management.
Building renovations have been under way for nearly two years, with much of the work done by center residents and volunteers.
“I’ve been unpacking boxes for the last couple days, and now I have all of our files; I know what we’ve got and I know where it is,” Brian Bisbee said. “We appreciated what we had before, but this is just so much of an improvement. We’re looking forward to the opportunity to serve the community in a greater way.”
Bisbee said it took less than three hours to complete the move to the new center.
“The big move was Saturday; we had a bunch of trailers and trucks, and our residents and volunteers and staff started filling trucks, and off we went,” he said.
He said the moving crew was composed of about 25 people.
Part of the reason the move went so quickly was that much of the furniture, appliances and equipment in the new center was donated and delivered to the new site in advance. The building is the former Leggett & Platt national research center.
New bedding was donated by the Carthage-based company, and couches and chairs were donated by firms that the company supplies.
Bisbee credited the support of company officials Felix Wright and David Haffner, “plus the hundreds of people who worked on the project or helped with it, including our residents.”
He added, “It’s all come to fruition, and it’s just amazing.”
Furniture giveaway
The Carthage Crisis Center will hold its annual furniture and appliance giveaway at 9 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 31. Donations can be brought to the site from 7 to 9 a.m., and residents can also volunteer to help load and unload.
