Please write to them to support opening the Mary Randell Center this winter!

Mayor Joseph L. Fisona:  Email:  elkadsec@iximd.com
Town of Elkton, Administration Office, 100 Railroad. Avenue, Elkton, Maryland 21921
Persons wishing to contact Mayor Fisona may call his secretary, L. Michelle Henson, at (410) 398-0970, ext. 142.

 
An open letter to the Elkton Mayor and Commissioners to help end homelessness this winter by expediting the opening of our faith-based center at 401 North Street.
December 10, 2007

Dear Mayor Fisona and Commissioners Givens, Jablonski, Piner, and Storke:

Meeting Ground, together with churches and volunteers who have been operating the Rotating Winter Church-based Emergency Shelter in Cecil County, are appealing to you for help in eliminating homelessness in our community, and to offer warmth and help to those in our community who are suffering in the cold.

We know that providing shelter for the night is not enough. These same persons must walk the streets during the day, with no place to keep warm or to sit and work with the tools, resources and caring volunteers necessary to work on getting their lives together. Many are sick or becoming sick from this situation. We must always seriously consider the strong possibility that persons may die this winter from cold or illness due to exposure. Especially this year, such a prospect is completely unnecessary because we stand ready to provide help to persons is such a dangerous position if we can get permission to open our new center.

As you know, we have acquired the property at 401 North St. to open a place of spiritual and personal redemption and restoration for persons caught in the spiral of homelessness, as well as others who are living close to the edge of becoming homeless. Our activities at this site will be limited to worship services, bible study, prayer, Christian counsel, basic daytime hospitality, and practical assistance and referral to appropriate social service, health and medical services. Our long experience with helping the homeless of Cecil County has taught us that this holistic and faith-based approach will be powerfully effective in changing and restoring and lives.

We are aware that this proposal is opposed by some of you and by some influential persons in the town. We also know there is much strong and passionate support for the work we are doing. We applied to the zoning office for an occupancy permit in August, and we are still far from receiving permission to open even though all of our proposed church-based activities have been officially stated to be permitted of right to churches and commercial operations in the C-1 zone. Presently we face many more months of delay and expenditure of precious funds to continue a struggle for something we feel should be welcomed in a town which is trying to solve the problem of homelessness. It is painful for us to know that we have a warm building, and substantial help, but cannot open our doors even to pray with those in our community who are suffering greatly. It seems unjust and unnecessary in a town as compassionate as Elkton.

We are asking for your help in finding a way we can open immediately. We will continue working with the zoning office, and others, to obtain an occupancy permit, but in the interim we ask for your intervention in support of our efforts, in whatever way you can, to at least allow us to open for this winter season. We ask for the sake of our neighbors who are out in the cold, who in this Christmas season only wish for a little help to stay warm and get back on their feet. That help we stand ready to provide, if you will help us. We ask on behalf of the mercy and care in all our hearts, and in God's love for us all.