Unlikely partners taking shared risks to renew our community for Christ's sake.
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The Week _ South Street:
South Street Ministries
15 Year Anniversary!!
RSVP Now!
March 9th 2012
6:30-7:30 Light Refreshments
7:30-9:00 15 Yr. Celebration
Blog
Where: Hoban High School
Speaker : Bob Lupton
The Front Porch is South Street's between space.
Between rich and poor.
Between black and white.
Between the Church and the world.
Between stranger and neighbor.
Cross the threshold & join us in a space to be still, find work, connect, serve, &worship.
Cafe open during the week. Front Porch Fellowship on Sundays at Noon.
798 Grant St. Akron, OH 44311
The Front Porch Cafe
-- Open for Business --
Monday -- Friday :: 7 am - 2 pm
Why?
South Street Ministries is working to love our neighbors. Many of our neighbors need jobs. Many need acceptance. The Front Porch Cafe provides both: a job for a few friends who need further training, somewhat gracious bosses, and an atmosphere of support and a community space for neighbors to gather, eat, worship, sing, and listen.
The Front Porch Cafe is the first of a few social business enterprises that is a hybrid of non-profit outreach and for-profit business. Please consider supporting us in this venture by coming to the cafe for business meetings, study hours, breakfast, lunch, or an evening gathering!
Construction
Construction at the Front Porch is being undertaken in phases.
Phase I - Main floor, social room, Front Porch Cafe, electric, & windows.
Phase II - Roofing, main floor rear, basement renovations, and masonry work
Phase III - Second floor, flex-space for small business & social services.
For any interest in volunteer or reduced cost labor (skilled and unskilled), please contact Project Manager Eric Harmon at:
eric_southstreetministries.org
Events
There is always something going on at the Front Porch!
Front Porch Cafe -- Open for Business 7 am to 2 pm Monday through Saturday!
The Front Porch Fellowship -- Meets for worship, teaching, & fellowship
Sundays at noon.
Risen Warriors Fellowship & Study -- Thursdays at 7 pm
Expect more music events, social gatherings, and dry festivities in the future!
Philosophy
The Front Porch is located in an area of need. The building's neighbors include the Summit County Jail, Community Based Correctional Facility for Men and Women, CSL Plasma Center, and many other social services.
In order to truly love our neighbors, our call is to create a place of welcome in a broken community. The Front Porch is the threshold into recovery, reconciliation, and into a beloved community.
We recognize and encourage a mutual servitude. Thus we are not a social service site, but a community committed to health, growth, and the Kingdom of God.
Duane & Lisa Crabbs have lived in the Summit Lake neighborhood in South Akron for 13 years and are committed to being there for quite some time. Following a call to serve, minister, and pastor the poor, Duane Crabbs left his job as a firefighter to pastor in the inner-city. Moving his wife and four children to 130 W. South Street, South Street Ministries was formed.
Now 14 years and a great many hardships, surprises, and blessings later, Duane leads and serves as the pastor of South Street fellowship, extending his council to recovering addicts, searching college students, prison inmates, neighborhood children, and Christians wrestling to apply some practice to their faith.
Lisa Crabbs, who actually makes South Street run, serves as SSM's Executive Director, managing the day-to-day schedules, finances, donations, volunteers, and just about everything else. A proud mother of four, Lisa extends her maternal nature to the many volunteers, children, and strange guests who grace South Streets steps.
What We Do: Every ministry of South Street has been a response to a direct need from the community. We serve alongside our neighbors to enrich the South Akron neighborhood.
After School serves local children in grades 1 through 5, from 5 pm to 6:30 pm on Monday through Thursday, throughout the course of the school year. Children come and receive a snack, play board games or educational, computer programs, receive homework assistance and tutoring, play a group game, enjoy a Bible study, and then head home with another snack. After School students take monthly trips on Friday (Friday Fun-days!!) to various environmental, educational, and recreational sites. The After School program also employs two Street Leaders who assist the youth with homework and learn valuable job-skills while working.
After School
Open Gym, South Street’s largest program, operates from January through May serving local, adolescent males, aging from 8th grade to young adults. On Wednesday evenings from 6 to 9:30, Open Gym invites teenagers and young men to compete in a three-on-three basketball tournament, provides a warm meal for the participants, and challenges the students through guest speakers and break-out discussions. Open Gym has expanded its ministry to include renting a gymnasium, taking college experience field trips, and transporting students to and from their homes.
Open Gym
Bike Shop runs from mid-spring to late summer (generally April through August). It is traditionally open two nights a week for two-three hour periods. Local youth, ranging from 3 to 19 years old, come and work on bicycles. No bike is free at bike shop! Bikes are earned through logging in hours working on your own bike, cleaning the shop, and assisting others. Pending on the age of the child, after a certain amount of hours are worked, the child can take the bike home. For example, a five year old may have to work just 2-4 hours to earn a bike, while a thirteen year old will be asked to work 6-8 hours. The used bicycles are all donated from local organizations and churches, however bike shop is always in need of tools, tubes, patches, and chains.
Bike Shop
Urban Gardening begins in early spring and endures until late fall (depending on the crops planted). The urban gardens require initial tilling and sowing, daily weeding and watering, and harvesting when the plants are ripe. Children and adults from the neighborhood participate in the process along with volunteer groups. Local youth are hired to mow, weed, and maintain the plots of land. The youth are instructed in keeping track of their hours, how to properly and safely use lawn service tools, and receive compensation for their efforts along with advice on how to save money and set financial goals.
Urban Gardens
Summer Camp
Summer camp operates from June through August and like after school is intended for 1st through 5th graders (although many older children come to join as well). Summer camp operates like after school, but with a pronounced emphasis on recreation and Bible study over education. Summer Camp provides children with a daily snack and weekly Friday Fun-day trips.
Why We Do It
As Christians living in South Akron, we take the call to love our neighbors as ourselves seriously. Staff and volunteers alike have experienced a deepening walk by laying down their time, finances, and patience for those in need, and we are convinced this is what God would have us do.
Beyond the Program
Ministry and service are lifestyles at South Street. The programs listed below do not fully encompass the breadth of ministry that happens within the neighborhood. When the program ends, our ministry continues through dinners, sitting together, fixing houses, building guitars, etc...
330-761-1992
The Front Porch
798 Grant St.
Akron, OH 44311
130 W. South St.
Duane Crabbs -- cityoutreach_hotmail.com
Lisa Crabbs -- southstreetministries_hotmail.com
Joe Tucker -- josephjtucker_gmail.com
Eric Harmon -- eric_southstreetministries.org
TuckerSouthStreet.pdf
January_newsletter.pdf
SSM Feb2011 newsletter.pdf
SSM May2011 newsletter final.pdf
MainPromotional.pdf
SSMJuly2011Newsletter.pdf
SouthStreetBusinessAdvisoryBoard.pdf
SSMNov2011.pdf
South Street Ministries is a member of the Christian Community Development Association.
We try our best to practice and live John Perkin's 3 R's of community development:
Relocation: Moving to the broken and downtrodden places, making our home there, and seeking the good of that place alongside our neighbors.
Reconciliation: Making things right between ourselves and God, our neighbors, black and white, rich and poor, Jew and gentile, male and female.
Redistribution: Sharing of our abundance with those who have less, and recognizing the worth that 'the other' has to offer.
Because Jesus lived these out first.
And we're trying to follow him (as best as we can).
First Glance
Mission Year
CCDA
Love Akron
Urban Vision
Urban Connection
Urbean Cafe
19 Action News -- Working for Food
South Street Ministries Old Blog
More to come...
The Wandering Reverend
Sojourners Blog
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
More to come soon...
the grassroots
A simple thanks to everyone else.
To the volunteers who make our programs possible.
For the donors who give school supplies, cleaning products, blankets, winter clothes and just about anything else we request.
To those whose right hand has no idea what the left hand is doing.
To those who give (and give) financially.
To those who pray for us.
Foundations & Organizations
2010
+Pay It Forward Grant Kent State
+Welty Family Foundation
+Northern Ohio Golf Charities &
Foundation
2011
+Akron Community Foundation & City of Akron Neighborhood Partnership Grant
+WITAN
(Women In Touch with Akron's Needs)
+Walmart Community Foundation
+Sheetz Community Foundation
+Leadership Akron
+Target
