CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — It's National Salvation Army Week. It's the special time designated for Salvation Army chapters across the country to thank donors and volunteers for their past and continued support and to introduce the good works to potential new donors.
On Friday, the Salvation Army of the Coastal Bend held a virtual tour on the developments of its new Sara and Dick Rathbeger Center of Hope. The new facility will replace its current offices located on Josephine Street. Phase I of the capital project is still under construction. Officials say the health crisis has had an affect on the work.
"We have gotten a little bit behind schedule, obviously, because of the coronavirus and shortages in supplies and other things...complying with regulations. But we're still actually doing pretty well," said Captain Patrick Gessner, Commanding Officer for the local chapter.
Phase I of the project includes constructing the 27,000 facility that will house all of the administrative offices, a shelter for families with children, and veterans. The building will also include a new kitchen capable of serving hundreds of more meals daily to those in need.
Captain Gessner says the project is not completely funded. The Salvation Army still needs an additional $1.2 million.
"So we went ahead and started building but this building is not 100 percent funded yet. We have a couple of requests for funding that are still out there and we're waiting to hear back," said Gessner,"and we won't hear back on a very big one for about six months."
The original project deadline was October or mid-November of this year, but the deadline has been pushed to December.
"It's going to really impact thousands and thousands of families who will not fall into homelessness but will have places to live," said Gessner.
The Salvation Army is accepting donations and has naming rights opportunities.
