'This is truly God's work': Kokomo Rescue Mission celebrates 70 years of service
Aug. 3—Jennifer Hughes has seen her fair share of trouble over the years, a lot of it she admitted she brought on herself.
"I was a drug addict, and so I got in trouble," she said.
But then she found the Kokomo Rescue Mission and their women and children's shelter, Open Arms.
"They made sure I was on my medication," she said. "They made sure I was helping out in the community there. ... The people that helped me in my time of need are still in my life."
And over the past five years, Hughes has given back to the KRM, just like it has provided for her.
As assistance coordinator, Hughes now gets to help those men and women whose shoes she has been in, and she said she can't wait for what the future holds.
"It's probably one of the highlights of my life," she said, referring to finding the KRM. "My parents will tell you, this is the best place that's happened to me."
And Hughes is not alone in that belief.
For the past 70 years, the KRM has stood tall as a beacon of hope in downtown Kokomo, inviting those experiencing homelessness or near-homelessness a warm bed and a hot meal.
Through the mission's three shelters — the men's shelter at 314 W. Mulberry St., the women's shelter (Watered Garden) at 319 W. Taylor St. and the women and children's shelter (Open Arms) at 929 N. Main St. — the KRM has impacted thousands of lives over the last seven decades.
Through the organization's community outreach programs, like Red Ribbon Christmas or Walk a Mile, the burden of families wondering where their next meal is coming from is often lifted.
And that's cause for celebration, officials note, so the party runs from 5-9 p.m. Friday at KRM's main building at 321 W. Mulberry St.
There will be live music, food trucks, games, a bounce house and the Peru Circus on the Road, but there will also be a lot of gratitude going around for an organization with very humble beginnings.
FULFILLING A VISION
According to Tribune archives, the story of how the KRM came to be is possibly rooted from a conference that took place on a houseboat at Winona Lake, near Warsaw.
For years, per the archives, the Women's Missionary Society at Kokomo's Zion United Methodist Church "made up Thanksgiving and Christmas baskets for the poor, but they realized that hungry people needed help at other times as well."
But it was during that conference in northern Indiana that one of the society's members, a Kokomo resident named Marjorie Keim, reportedly learned about the Rescue Mission Movement that was taking place at the time throughout the United States.
And when Keim came back from that meeting, she was convinced that's what Kokomo needed, according to the archives.
Another Women's Missionary Society member, Opal Trottier, agreed with Keim, and she reportedly went to area businesses for financial backing.
She then got other churches and pastors involved, resulting in a public meeting that occurred Oct. 7, 1952.
Out of that meeting, Trottier was named the KRM's first board president.
And four months later, the facility officially opened its doors, serving the community out of a little white building in the 100 block of South Union Street.
The mission has moved around the city several times during its 70 years of service.
From South Union, it moved to 705 N. Main St.
After that, it moved to 315 S. Main St. and then to 300 W. Mulberry St. before officially landing at its current location in 1998.
But a building is just a building.
What really matters is the work that's done inside.
The Tribune sat down earlier this week with a group of KRM's employees, board members and volunteers to discuss that work, and they all agreed on one idea.
For 70 years, the mission of the mission has always stayed the same.
A HEART FOR PEOPLE
"I think for the people we're helping, many of them, there'd be no place else to look," KRM Executive Director Kevin Smith said. "They need us. This is not a luxury. This is a necessity of life. ... This is a spiritual thing. If it was just a good idea, it would have died that first year. It had to be a God idea. It has to be call. It has to be something where Jesus is the one doing the calling, or else this place wouldn't have existed for 70 years."
Smith has been the executive director of the KRM for nearly a year now, taking over for Van Taylor, who spent 16 years in his leadership role.
Before Taylor, that role went to Bob Cox, who spent 20 years with the mission.
Smith lauded that longevity, adding that he hopes his season with the mission will be just as fruitful.
Smith also offered an open invitation to those in the community who have not seen firsthand what the mission does on a daily basis, while also showing gratitude to those who have given generously.
"If you have a heart for people, there's a spot for you," he said. "There's a spot for the 90-year-olds. There's a spot for ... I've even seen little kids wrapping presents. If you think you know what's going on at the mission, well, you probably don't.
"There are 1,100 people who volunteered here last year," he added, "and we have a donor list in the thousands. We have people who spend more on the stamp for the envelope than they put inside of it. You can argue and say that doesn't make sense, but I look at that and think, 'What a heart.'"
Two of those who heard the calling to go to the KRM years ago were bookkeeper Debbie Faunce, who said she started working at the former building across Mulberry Street in 1995, and board member Riley Case.
"You think of a homeless shelter, and you probably think of ragamuffins and addicts," she said. "Ok, yes, there might be some of that, but there's also a group of people that are just down on their luck. And they don't have that perspective that this is a homeless shelter. To them, this is a home. It's just a temporary place."
For Case, who started helping at the mission in the 1990s, it was about carrying out Biblical principle.
"The Bible verse that influenced me the most was when it says, 'Blessed are the poor in spirit,'" he said. "It's the least and the lost and the last, the ones that are pushed down and need help. Those are the ones God calls us to serve. And it's also people like Opal (Trottier) who helped keep this place going. She carried this place with her prayers."
KRM Board President Mike Fox agreed with Faunce and Case.
"I think the part that always has amazed me is that this is truly God's work," he said. "If you build it, God will fund it. And it's always happened too. God has always provided. ... What rattled my soul so much when I started doing this was realizing every night that there's somebody sleeping under the bridges of McCann and Washington streets. There's people sleeping there, no matter the temperature. If that doesn't rattle your soul, then there's a problem.
"And so many people in our community want to fix that," Fox added. "So many here (at the KRM) want to help fix that. Sometimes those folks don't want the help, and that's OK. But I think it's just a calling that God's put in this community, and here at the mission, that we have to take care of people."
Dave Boss came to KRM in 1999 as the organization's social media director at the time, and he said he couldn't imagine the mission not being a part of his life.
But Boss also admitted that there are still those with a misinformed view of the KRM and those men and women that the organization helps.
He then used an anecdote to make that point.
"I had a lady run into the men's entrance with a man following her once," he said, "and she said someone stole her phone. She had tracked it into the building. But what she said to me was, 'I know what kind of people you have here.' I told her to never say anything like that to me again because she didn't actually know what type of people we have here.
"'We don't have a 'kind of people,'" Boss added, remembering his conversation with the woman. "'Have some people in here stolen stuff? Yes, but they're not all thieves.'" And after I said what I said to her, the woman began to backtrack. Here at the KRM, we just have people. We don't have a certain kind of people."
But the people served by the KRM do deserve to be heard, to be respected and to be loved, those interviewed said.
"I love it here," KRM Marketing and Communications Coordinator Kasey Woolslare said. "I've really wanted to follow Jesus to the frontlines, and I know in our community, these are the frontlines. The KRM is often where the Kingdom of Heaven and Earth are meeting, where you can truly be the hands and feet of Jesus. People that show up here are in need, and how cool is it that we have just the resources and things available here to help them."
