Combined Community Services Breaks Ground On New Facility
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By -
CCS staff, board members, and city and county officials met at the site west of North Pointe Cinemas and Silveus Insurance on Mariner Drive in Warsaw.
Robinson Construction is serving as the contractor for the $1.5 million project. Scearce-Rudisel Architects assisted Robinson Construction with the design plans.
Plans are for the construction to end in June 2012, when CCS must be moved out of its current 110 E. Prairie St. location.
CCS will then move to the Mariner Drive location in June 2012, according to Stephen Possell, CCS executive director. Good Oil has purchased the existing Prairie Street facility.
“We will be able to expand and provide more services to our clients, and have a more adequate food pantry and a larger place to house our case workers,” Possell said.
Possell said the facility was a long-awaited plan that will take 10 to 11 months for the facility to be built.
Possell said no tax dollars will be used to build the facility. The new facility is being funded by grants and donations from corporations and individuals.
People who want to contribute financially can visit the CCS website at www.combinedcommunityservices.org
CCS is a non-profit agency founded by the Greater Warsaw Ministerial Association to prevent duplication of services provided to those in need in Kosciusko County.
“The current facility is not meeting the needs of CCS’s programs nor providing space for the agency’s future needs, and that is why a new facility is desperately needed,” said Joseph Jarboe, CCS board president.
Multiple employees are now crammed into small offices, making confidentiality difficult, Jarboe said.
Initial conversations with clients occur in the main lobby and force people who are already in stressful situations to discuss their circumstances in the presence of others, Jarboe said.
The Project Independence Program has three counselors in the same room that doesn’t provide privacy for discussions with clients when the staff members and clients are trying to work through their personal challenges to have a better life.
Currently, there are waiting lists for both the Hand Up and Project Independence programs, however, the limited space in the current offices prevents any possibility of growth to serve more clients.
One of the most frequently used programs of CCS is the emergency food bank and the provision of clothes.
Storage for additional food and other supplies is currently in the attic with a low clearance of only a few feet in some places. The attic is only accessible by steep stairs, making storage of large deliveries difficult, if not impossible.
The food pantry aisles are tight and cramped so it is difficult to fill multiple food orders at once.
There also is no space within the current facility for client workshops or meeting space for staff and volunteers, Jarboe said.
The new building will provide room for more storage of food and the ability for CCS to provide families with a better variety of healthy foods.
An expanded clothing pantry will allow CCS to serve more families with a better variety of clothing and provide dressing rooms.
There will be a chapel for clients to use in the new facility.
There also will be a meeting room for workshops and better accessibility for clients for parking.
A larger lobby will assist clients so they don’t have to park across the street and walk to CCS, or wait in their vehicles until the lobby is less full.[[In-content Ad]]
CCS staff, board members, and city and county officials met at the site west of North Pointe Cinemas and Silveus Insurance on Mariner Drive in Warsaw.
Robinson Construction is serving as the contractor for the $1.5 million project. Scearce-Rudisel Architects assisted Robinson Construction with the design plans.
Plans are for the construction to end in June 2012, when CCS must be moved out of its current 110 E. Prairie St. location.
CCS will then move to the Mariner Drive location in June 2012, according to Stephen Possell, CCS executive director. Good Oil has purchased the existing Prairie Street facility.
“We will be able to expand and provide more services to our clients, and have a more adequate food pantry and a larger place to house our case workers,” Possell said.
Possell said the facility was a long-awaited plan that will take 10 to 11 months for the facility to be built.
Possell said no tax dollars will be used to build the facility. The new facility is being funded by grants and donations from corporations and individuals.
People who want to contribute financially can visit the CCS website at www.combinedcommunityservices.org
CCS is a non-profit agency founded by the Greater Warsaw Ministerial Association to prevent duplication of services provided to those in need in Kosciusko County.
“The current facility is not meeting the needs of CCS’s programs nor providing space for the agency’s future needs, and that is why a new facility is desperately needed,” said Joseph Jarboe, CCS board president.
Multiple employees are now crammed into small offices, making confidentiality difficult, Jarboe said.
Initial conversations with clients occur in the main lobby and force people who are already in stressful situations to discuss their circumstances in the presence of others, Jarboe said.
The Project Independence Program has three counselors in the same room that doesn’t provide privacy for discussions with clients when the staff members and clients are trying to work through their personal challenges to have a better life.
Currently, there are waiting lists for both the Hand Up and Project Independence programs, however, the limited space in the current offices prevents any possibility of growth to serve more clients.
One of the most frequently used programs of CCS is the emergency food bank and the provision of clothes.
Storage for additional food and other supplies is currently in the attic with a low clearance of only a few feet in some places. The attic is only accessible by steep stairs, making storage of large deliveries difficult, if not impossible.
The food pantry aisles are tight and cramped so it is difficult to fill multiple food orders at once.
There also is no space within the current facility for client workshops or meeting space for staff and volunteers, Jarboe said.
The new building will provide room for more storage of food and the ability for CCS to provide families with a better variety of healthy foods.
An expanded clothing pantry will allow CCS to serve more families with a better variety of clothing and provide dressing rooms.
There will be a chapel for clients to use in the new facility.
There also will be a meeting room for workshops and better accessibility for clients for parking.
A larger lobby will assist clients so they don’t have to park across the street and walk to CCS, or wait in their vehicles until the lobby is less full.[[In-content Ad]]
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