59 “You never know how we may touch the people’s lives we may come in contact with here,” says Angel Ministries director Jennipher Love. “The Harrelson Center is a haven for people that need that extra helping hand.” Cells on the men’s floor reflect the current state of the building’s upper floors. All of the steel in the jail was cut away and sold. One holding cell in the visitor’s area was left intact as a reminder of the Harrelson Center’s history. William Peacock was hired as the center’s janitor seeking employment from Phoenix Employment Ministry, one of the center’s tenants. www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com WBM Peacock says he completed some temporary maintenance work for the center after the previous janitor left, and Dull hired him for the job. “I must have done a good job because they couldn’t praise me enough,” he says. “Working here has made me feel real good, oh yeah.” Dull says the center’s non-profits have become a family over time, sharing resources and ideas. “It’s not about handing out money but building relation-ships at the Harrelson Center,” Dull says. The center serves as a central information bank bringing its nonprofits together for joint grants, training opportunities and seasonal parties in the cen-ter’s outdoor open courtyard, Dull says. “That collaboration is pos-sible because we’re all in this building,” says Communities in Schools grants manager Sue Tucker, adding that the loca-tion works for them because it’s near downtown schools, D.C. Virgo Preparatory Academy, New Hanover High School and Williston Middle School. Dull says Wilmington Area Rebuilding Ministry (WARM) and Cape Fear Habitat for Humanity have collaborated or shared resources on projects. The same has happened with Communities in Schools and Phoenix Employment Ministry. “We’ve had a chance with Phoenix Employment Ministry where some of their clients have children that we also serve; so at night when the parents are at a Phoenix program, their kids come here for after school,” Jeter adds. “It’s becoming this place where all the parts are working together.” When the Harrelson Center’s staff realized there were gaps in either county or nonprofit services, it created its own min-istry to fill those voids. Angel Outreach Ministry has helped people in the Wilmington Drug Court program arrange trans-portation and helped homeless people acquire IDs so they could stay in a local shelter. “You never know how we may touch the people’s lives we may come in contact with here,” says Angel Ministries director Jennipher Love. “The Harrelson Center is a haven for people that need that extra helping hand.” As the center’s resident non-profits rehabilitate the lives of their clients, so too does the building they share lose its association with incarceration and continues to move toward transformation. Just one of the jail cells with bunks intact has been preserved as is, to remind visitors of the building’s past, Dull says. But, otherwise, all the steel bars that held lives in check have been cut away. The building has trans-formed to a place of healing and hope.
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