Southern Baptist Church, Mayor Vow to Rebuild $16 Million Senior Center Razed During Baltimore Riots
Southern Baptist Church Pastor Donte Hickman Sr., building developers and Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake vowed Monday to rebuild a $16 million senior center that was burned to the ground in East Baltimore last week during riots sparked by the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray.
Hickman, whose church is located across the street from the senior center had worked on plans for the building for five years before he was finally able to convince a developer, politicians and bureaucrats to support his vision.
A week after watching his incomplete dream go up in flames on Monday however, Hickman was hopeful again when he joined the developer, The Woda Group, and city officials to announce the rebuilding of the facility named the Mary Harvin Transformation Center.
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"This is not a setback, but a setup to restart this project," Hickman noted in a report in The Baltimore Sun. "The Broadway East community will come back better and stronger than before."
The Mary Harvin Transformation Center was Hickman's passion project designed to uplift the surrounding Baltimore community by housing roughly 60 low-income senior citizens in individual apartments. It is also include a community center.
Kevin V. Bell, a representative from The Woda Group representative shared Hickman's optimism.
"What did not burn – what cannot burn – is the human spirit behind the bricks and mortar," Bell told The Baltimore Sun.
Bell exlained that insurance will cover losses incurred by construction company Harkin Builders allowing them to rebuild without additional loans or financing. Other financers of the facility including Capital One Bank and Hudson Housing Capital have also stood behind the project.
Other Baltimore properties including a CVS store were ravaged along with the senior center during the riots which resulted in some 200 arrests, 144 vehicle fires and 19 structure fires. The riots broke out the day of Gray's funeral. He died on April 19 after being seriously injured while in police custody.
In comments during a press conference Monday, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said Gray's death troubled everyone in the city.
"We were down as a city. Everyone was very troubled by [the incident] of Mr. Freddie Gray and how he lost his life. Everyone was concerned. We were heartbroken and we were down because we know in a city that many of you worked so hard in partnership with the police to have a safer city that even in Baltimore, where we know how hard we have walked together, we became the next chapter in this national conversation around police brutality, police misconduct, racism, poverty," she said.
Rebuilding Baltimore, says Meeke Addison, American Family Association's director of Urban Family Talk, will take more than just the reconstructing of buildings.
"When you work and when you invest in your community and you save up for decades to buy a home or however long it takes. You're not going to quickly burn it to the ground. What we're seeing here is a lack of ownership," she said. "There's a lack of investment in this community."
Various non-profits including Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Greater Chesapeake, Maryland Food Bank, Salvation Army Central Maryland and United Way of Central Maryland are all taking donations to assist in rebuilding efforts.
Mayoral spokesman Kevin Harris credited the riots as the cause the senior center fire last week and Baltimore's deputy fire chief stated that the department is 99 percent sure the two are linked.
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is investigating the center fire and others set by the riots and is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to convictions.
The Christian Post reached out to Pastor Hickman for comment, but he was not available in time to comment on this report.
