Student group tours Place of Grace Rescue Mission
By Kevin Spradlin
PeeDeePost.com
ROCKINGHAM — Olivia Haley wasn’t sure what to expect when she first visited Place of Grace Rescue Mission just before Thanksgiving.
Tony Hogan | WRSH 91.1 FM
Olivia Haley and John Pittman talk with Kevin Spradlin, left, of The Pee Dee Post, about the students’ recent visit to the Place of Grace Rescue Mission, a homeless shelter in East Rockingham. Looking on is station engineer Scotlin Maples.
Haley, a senior at Richmond Senior High School and one of 50 members of the Fellowship of Christian Students, was one of a seven-person FCS entourage to visit the East Rockingham homeless shelter and donate blankets, clothing and personal hygiene items for the shelter’s temporary residents.
“It was my first time” there, Haley said. “It was really eye-opening to see all those people who don’t have as much as we do.”
Haley and fellow senior John Pittman discussed the students’ visit Friday during The Pee Dee Post‘s weekly radio program on WRSH 91.1 FM. The show broadcasts live at 11:30 a.m. each Friday. Tony Hogan, Scotlin Maples and Jessica Povish served as station engineers for the program.
Haley plans to continue her studies next fall and become an elementary school teacher. Pittman said he’s pursuing a business degree. But their personal pursuits were put on hold for two and one-half hours on Nov. 20.
“We were just donating some items to the shelter, just to help out,” Pittman said.
Pittman said the Fellowship of Christian Students, along with club advisor Karen McLean, chose this year to help a local program instead of other programs that, in the past, have benefited children around the globe. A number of classes competed to see who could garner the most donations.
Haley said the students unloaded the items, then met with some of the shelter residents and played soccer with them behind the Airport Road building. The students learned a little bit about the residents’ lives.
One man, Haley said, was in the military. The man said he was still traveling and “leaving soon.”
Pittman said he connected with a man from southern Mexico for whom, like the other man, Richmond County was but a way station.
“He had just gotten here,” Pittman said, after traveling from Mexico through New Orleans. He was headed north, Pittman said. “A lot of people were just passing through the area and didn’t have a place to stay.”
Previous Place of Grace coverage on PeeDeePost.com:
* Dec. 3: A man named James: How becoming homeless saved my life
* Nov. 23: Place of Grace, Rescue Mission merge
* Nov. 6: Place of Grace moves out of tents, into building
* Nov. 3: RCC students donate to Place of Grace
* Oct. 7: Grace period for tent city ministry
* Sept. 21: ‘It works, it works, it works’
* Sept. 5: Volunteers spur opening of tent city
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