Halo set to reopen shelters and dedicate Hope Center

Halo Ministries in Salisbury has a big weekend planned as they're set to dedicate their facility calling it the "The Center of Hope" and re-open their men's and women's shelters after their annual cleaning.

As Halo's executive director Celeste Savage explained having clean shelters goes way beyond just the nice appearance.

"I think what we see a lot of times or what we were seeing a lot of times before – the guys were coming in and it was a ho-hum, now they're going to walk in with their heads held high. You know it's still a shelter, but it's clean, it's nice," Savage said. "It's kind of letting them know 'hey you're worth it'."

The shelters re-opens Monday. The dedication for the facility will be on Sunday at 3 p.m. The dedication marks the culmination of over a year and a half of work that was put in after Halo purchased part of the the building that used to belong to Harvest Baptist Ministries. With Halo in ownership of the whole building they embarked on a renovation that would turn the former into an extension of Halo complete with a multi-purpose room that will double as a ministry and a room for summer programs for youth at the shelter.

"It just feels great to know that we can do what we need to do. I mean it's ours you know, we can fix it anyway want to, have it set up. I mean who would have thought that we were going to have a room like this were could have kids got talent, or you know have a church service come in or a a concert coming in or celebrate recovery," Savage said speaking about the multipurpose room.

Part of the building was already outfitted to house Halo's Eagle's Wings program, an after-school program for kids in the shelter. The room is furnished with games for the kids with everything from fooze ball to board games. It also features areas where kids can study scripture or work on other things.

That part of the building and the room right next to it will house Halo's summer program that starts Monday.  The program is seven weeks long and aimed at giving the kids in the shelter the tools to succeed in life.

"We want to get them early so that we get them out of this cycle, this homelessness cycle and hopefully give them a good foundation for themselves, self-confidence and see that they can move out move on," said Sharon Noonan, one of the volunteer teachers that was helping decorate one of the rooms Friday.

At the end of the program the kids will have a talent show in the multipurpose room, something Savage was already excited about.

"It's some kind of sweet," Savage said.

For more information on the dedication ceremony and for information on how you can help Halo Ministries you can head to their Facebook page here.