ARABI, La. -- Mondays are busy days at the St. Bernard Community Center in Arabi. In all, about 1,000 families a month come here for a range of services, from clothing to counseling, hot meals to laundry services, and a popular food pantry that helps those living on tight budgets, like Ervin Carr of Arabi.
"It might seem like small items, but it is very helpful to people that's on fixed incomes," Carr said.
But since the oil spill, the St. Bernard Community Center has been busier than ever, with requests for help up 20 to 60 percent. More people need this place than can fit inside it.
"Everybody doesn't have a place to sit," said Community Center Executive Director Iray Nabatoff. "When we do the hot meal, it becomes standing room only for lunch, and we've overwhelmed our physical infrastructure."
"I came to work on the computer, look for a job," said Kathy Williams of Arabi. "That's one of the benefits here."
Kathy Williams just moved to Arabi from Colorado, and the center has become a resource as she looks for a job.
"They have a lot of like volunteer positions," Williams said, "but as far as actually a job where you get paid, it's just nil."
Nabatoff has found a potential site for a new center, more than four times larger than the original, which would allow him to expand services, offering job training, Head Start, and other programs, if he can find the funds to move in here.
"This should be a $5 million turnkey project, but because we're so grass roots, this is the way we know how to operate best, $500,000 will get our foot in the door in the campus."
A client told me the St. Bernard Commuinity Center helped rebuild lives, rebuild families, rebuild homes, and brought hope and smiles back to people in St. Bernard.
But the center's director knows they are going to have to move at some point. They can't stay in their current location, and if they don't find a new one, he says the future looks bleak.
"As it goes now, especially because we have so outgrown the space that we operate in, if we don't make the move, I can't guarantee there'll be a center here a year from now," Nabatoff warned.
I'll let you know what happens.
