The rising need from the pandemic, inflation and flooding hasn’t stopped organizers at a food bank in Chattooga County — and through it all, they’re planning another community service: a woman’s shelter.
The Community Resource Center of Chattooga has been running a food bank in Summerville for eight years, Angie Hutchins, executive director of the nonprofit organization, said in a phone interview. Esther Manor is the organization’s next step: an eight-bed women’s shelter planned for a building that used to be the county’s homeless shelter.
“My husband and I have been foster parents for 17 years in the county, and a lot of the kids we have are the older teenagers,” Hutchins said. “Since there’s a lot of women involved in the ministry, we just stuck with teenage girls.”
Kaitlyn Fuller is a volunteer with the organization. In a phone interview, she said Esther Manor will house 18- to 25-year-old women who are leaving bad home lives, homeless or aging out of foster care. Fuller said they’ll have two years of supportive housing while they are learning financial literacy and life skills to get them “on their feet, so they can become the queens of their own lives.”
(READ MORE: Water is back on in Chattooga County as flood relief efforts continue)