BANGOR, Maine — The Columbia Street Project, located next door to the Columbia Street Baptist Church, will hold a forum from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday to discuss how the nonprofit can help meet the needs of people who have been affected by the criminal justice system, poverty, substance abuse and mental illness.
Stakeholders from greater Bangor have been invited to attend, the Rev. Stan Moody, executive director of the Columbia Street Project and a former chaplain at the Maine State Prison, said Monday.
“We want to come up with a vision for helping people rise above their circumstances,” Moody said. “We view ourselves as a resource center where we connect people to services. With the forum, we hope to find out where the missing links are for people who need them.”
The slogan of the project is: “Where Faith Gets Down to Business.”
The goal of the forum is to help the church determine how best to work with providers so a multitude of services, scattered throughout the area, can be offered at the church’s more convenient location.
The mission of the Columbia Street Project is to “build partnerships that empower those struggling with criminal justice backgrounds, substance abuse, homelessness and despair to rise above their circumstances through faith, recovery and life-skill training.”
Over the past two years, the church raised about $150,000 to renovate its education building, a former bakery, to help meet the goals of the project.
The Columbia Street Project grew out of the church’s efforts over the past several years to redefine its mission in downtown Bangor looking to build on its past. Founded in 1845 as a mission church of the city’s First Baptist Church, the Columbia Street church’s early pastors ministered to the sailors, loggers and “ladies of the evening” who flooded the Queen City’s waterfront. Then, it was called Second Baptist Church.
The project plans to offer literacy training, job training, sports, entrepreneurship training and life skill development to give people hope and direction, Moody said. A key element will be person-to-person mentoring.
“The church has done a good job of offering people a hand out with meals and emergency funds,” the minister said. “What we want to do now is offer them a hand up.”
For more information on the forum, call Columbia Street Baptist Church at 945-6616.