Film: Area Relief Ministries 2015
Jackson non-profit Area Relief Ministries (ARM) hosted their annual Salt & Light Banquet Thursday evening (August 20th) at the Civic Center. Members of the Hub Club choir kicked off the event, and then ARM helped educate the audience to display the wide variety of ministries they oversee including Room in the Inn, freshSTART, and Hub Club. These ministries have goals such as giving youth alternatives to the gang lifestyle and creating jobs for those who may not easily find one elsewhere.
The guest speakers were no strangers to Jackson: Dr. Logan Hampton and Dr. Samuel "Dub" Oliver, presidents at Lane College and Union University, respectively. They spoke jointly, a conversation between two godly men we were privilege to hear. Together, they encouraged us to be Great Commandment, Great Commission, and Great Compassion people.
It is traditional at the Salt & Light Banquet for ARM to show a video highlighting their various ministries and what they have accomplished over the last year. This year Our Jackson Home had to privilege of creating this film, and we are eager to share it with you!
Kevin Adelsberger and his wife Renae moved to Jackson for college (proud Union alumni) and have stayed every since. Jackson has since taken hold of Kevin’s heart, and he looks forward to continuing to grow with the city. Kevin opened Adelsberger Marketing in 2014 and saw working with Our Jackson Home as a way that he could serve the city he loves. Kevin and Renae are members of First Baptist Church and volunteer with the youth group there and with Madison County CASA.
Recap written by Renae Adelsberger. Header image provided by ARM.
A Jackson Police Department officer stares into the face of a woman working as a prostitute; his only option was to arrest her. He had no evidence or proof to arrest the man who was likely her trafficker. But where would the officer take her? Years later, this same officer would write a check to the Scarlet Rope Project, a home for survivors of sex trafficking.
We gathered in a living room of earthen walls painted mint green with a dirt floor covered by tarp. Our hostess sat aside from the group on a bench lining one of the walls so that we could all have a seat in a circle of sunk-in couches and ottomans. Alemaz Bola is a mother of five and an entrepreneur. She wore a head wrap striped with the green, yellow, and red of the Ethiopian flag and sat meekly aside as if to stay out of the way, despite the fact that we came to hear her story.
Entrepreneurs are sometimes the kind of people who come up with an idea and ruthlessly execute it. Others stumble into businesses ownership when their hobbies or passions lead them down a winding path of challenges and unexpected joys. Walt and Michelle James, the new owners of the Downtown Tavern, fall into the latter category. They are a pair of charitable entrepreneurs who were flung into the revitalization of downtown Jackson.
When I moved to Jackson to attend Union University, I had no connections to the community. I didn’t know anyone who lived here and planned to escape Jackson as soon as I got my degree. A few weeks into my freshman year, one of my professors gave his class two options: we could write a ten-page research paper, or we could volunteer for a couple hours a week throughout the semester at an after-school program called the HUB Club.
Two hands carefully hold the wet clay as it spins around and around. They shape it and form it to be beautiful, throwing the clay with force onto the wheel. The clay becomes centered as the hands see that it spins perfectly and smoothly. They begin to open the top—carefully, though, because they know if it isn't done correctly, they will have to start the process over again. From there they form the base, they thin and raise the walls, they go through each step with love.
Each generation has a particular vantage point to view our city’s history and the path tread down by our collective stories. Lost in our own days, we sometimes forget that we are a part of a city and one community. Whether it’s a road away from racial hatred or a road that celebrates creatives, a community adopts a certain path tread by the people before them. The community saunters along until the moment when individuals and organizations rise up and insist on change, for better or worse.
What’s better than finding an amazing deal on the perfect pair of jeans? Knowing that the money is going to a wonderful cause. That’s what you get at the RIFA Thrift Store! RIFA has had a presence in Jackson since 1976, when a group of local churches and community leaders decided to do something about the growing poverty levels in the city. The Thrift Store is one of the many ways that RIFA helps the people of Jackson, and it is open to the general public.
Caleb Hall, a student and basketball player for the JCM Cougars, won the Lane College Slam Dunk Contest at the Oman Arena Tuesday during a break between the sixteen different high schools battling in out in Area Relief Ministries’ third annual HUB Classic Basketball Tournament. JCM joined teams from North Side, Liberty, Trinity, and Madison from Jackson.
He bounded toward the car with soaked sock-feet, but he didn’t seem to care. His mother did, though. “Where are your shoes?” she asked. When he answered, the furrow in her brow fell and her heart sank. He said, “I gave them to a little boy. His had holes in them, and the bottom was broken.” That’s when it all started, she said. He was five years old.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I think sometimes the best ones don’t need words at all. As I browse through the photos taken last Saturday, December 5, at Help-Portrait (hosted by RIFA), I’m smiling behind my computer screen so big that if someone were to walk by my office they might think I’ve had just a little too much coffee.
Christmas was a big deal at my house. Throughout December, every radio (one in each room) was tuned to the same station, promising no escape from that beautiful—though maddening, for some—collection of classic standards and contemporary holiday tunes. That little kid, still roaming the corridors of my psyche, remembers Dad sitting next to the radio, waiting patiently to hear each of his perennial favorites, while Mom baked cookies destined to be set upon festive red and green trays.
We had a blast at the 2015 ARM Color Run this Saturday! Check out this awesome downtown tour of Jackson as seen through the eyes of contributor and runner Kristi Woody. It features "The Takeoff" by Flying Colours, one of our favorite local bands.
I had been craving some good country biscuits for a while when the Autrys invited me over for breakfast one Sunday. Marcie told me that her husband, Jamie, makes excellent biscuits and, man, was she right. “One of our dreams is to have a biscuit truck at the farmers’ market. We have a lot of dreams, though,” she said laughing in their kitchen. In fact, they’ve started keeping a written list, storing their dreams away in a log, ready for the picking when the time is right.
“It takes a village to raise a child.” We’ve all heard the phrase. And we have all seen the positive effects of a community working together to help their children succeed. Thanks to the Star Center, the village surrounding the students of Lincoln Elementary just got a little larger.
We have all heard the adage that it takes a village to raise a child. The vision of JMCSS Strong, a newly formed public school advocacy group in Jackson-Madison County, is for each child in our school system to have a village to help him/her succeed. Since we know that villages are formed by connecting people to one another, we want to make sure that children, along with their parents and teachers, are not disconnected from the larger system.
ComeUnity Café is doing something so exciting and new in Jackson, and I’m so thrilled to finally be sharing about it here! They are a non-profit cafe with a six-item menu that changes each day. ComeUnity Café is one of the most inviting and warm restaurants that I’ve been to in Jackson. From the greeting at the door to the smiles from the volunteers behind the counter, everything is just extremely pleasant.