Shalom Community Center celebrates opening of addition

Bloomington's Shalom Community Center marked the expansion of its facilities Monday with an open house celebration at its new \nlocation.\nThe nonprofit resource center for the area's homeless and poor has moved its day shelter and resource operations to 110 S. Washington St., while continuing its feeding program in the basement of the First United Methodist Church across the street.\n"Today is a milestone for us," said Joel Rekas, the center's executive director. "This is something we hoped we'd be able to do, but we envisioned it coming somewhere down the road."\nThe new expanded facilities will offer much-needed space to the people in need of the center's services, as well as to the various social service agencies that work with Shalom in providing resource assistance to the homeless and poor in the area.\nBesides being a day shelter, providing daily breakfast and lunch free of charge, laundry services, bathrooms, a computer center, mailboxes and telephones, the Shalom Community Center offers an employment program that includes job counseling and placement, resume and transportation assistance and meetings with area employers.\nThe center's Family Homelessness Prevention Project assists people with finding and obtaining housing and also helping those in need maintain their current housing.\nEducational programs include G.E.D. preparation, tutoring, computer training and parenting support.\n"The center brings together agencies, information and services that meet the needs of those in need," said Linda Patton, the center's program director. "It also provides people a non-judgmental place to be where they feel comfortable." \nThe Shalom Community Center began as an idea in 1998, as some members of the First United Methodist Church realized that people staying in emergency shelters in Bloomington had no place to go during the day between the hours of 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. The congregation members partnered with a local emergency shelter to open a room in the church to provide a safe place to go during the day that provided coffee, newspapers and a listening ear. This became the Shalom Community Center, a joint program of Shelter, Inc., and the First United Methodist Church. It was named Shalom after the Hebrew word for "welcome."\nIn January 2003, the center gained nonprofit status and became an entity of its own. \nAlbert "Sonny" Keltsy has been a recipient of the center's services since its inception.\n"Shalom's services are vital to many of us," Keltsy said. "It helped me evolve from living on the railroad tracks to hopefully moving into a trailer this weekend. That's quite a step"