Welcome
Indeed! Welcome to our site. If this is your first visit, if you’ve just stumbled on us, please take a few minutes to cruise our through our pages to see what we’re about, the opportunities with which God has graced us here in Newburgh, New York, where Jesus Christ walks the streets, eats in soup kitchens and sleeps in abandoned buildings.
(S)He is risen!
About 25 of us gathered at our new location – the sidewalk in front of Our Lady of Comfort, 91 Ann Street in the Burgh – on Easter Sunday to celebrate two resurrections.
The first, and most obvious, was the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the one who changed the course of western civilization’s history, the one who lives in us and calls us to wholeness, the one who wanders throu gh our streets, eats at soup kitchens, shops at food pantries, and sleeps in vacant buildings, and the one who, after nearly 2,000 years, still preaches the Message of good news to the poor, pardon to prisoners, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom to the burdened and battered, and announces that, “This is God's year to act!”
As we stopped to take in a deep breath of cold, crisp Newburgh air, we filled ourselves with the hope of th at message, the hope that we can become what God calls us to be – human beings fully alive, fully connected with our Creator and with one another as we realize God’s kingdom here on earth.
And, it is t he call to realize the kingdom that led us to celebrate a second resurrection – new life for Our Lady of Comfort, a 19-bed homeless shelter/rooming house that has fallen on hard times.
The child of Theresa Orzechowski, Our Lady has always been more than a building. It was a place where, for many years, folks who were homeless or beaten down by life could find shelter, a warm meal, clean clothes, compassion . . . comfo rt.
When Terri died in 1995, the organization went into decline, the building began to fall into disrepair. A few years ago, it seems, the only overnight guests were two ladies – Pat Tristas and Pat Morton – who had worked with Terri but simply were unable to keep things going. They prayed and waited for someone or some organization to come along and bring the building back to life and to resurrect Terri’s dream.
We knocked on the door last August when the City was threatening to foreclose because of an u npaid water bill. After six months of on-and-off conversations, we took a 30-year lease on the building for a dollar per year. It is now insured, we've hired an architect, and we’re building a fund to cover operating expenses. By year’s end, we hope to have Our Lady up and running once again as a place where up to 19 homeless women, men, and an occasional family can find comfort, a place where they can regain their footing and begin to rebuild th eir lives . . . Just as Terri had dreamed they would.
But that will take some doing. Our Lady has suffered greatly these last dozen years. In fact, she’s suffered to the point where she’s ready for $275,000 to $300,000 worth of renovations including a new roof; electrical, plumbing and heating systems; doors windows, ceilings and some walls; basement floor; a sprinkler system; a new front entryway . . . You name it; Our Lady needs it.
With that in mind, we’re pleased to report that, less than two months after taking over the building, we’ve been be awarded a $20,000 planning grant via Orange County’s HOME program that will allow us to hire an architect, engineer, and surveyor, get through the permitting process and be on our way toward rehabilitating the entire building and returning it to its legal use as a homeless shelter.
But, you can do the math - There’s the little matter of a $255,000 gap. We are applying for a grant through the State’s Homeless Housing Assistance Program which would plug most – or all – of that gap. We won’t know if we’ll get the grant until sometime in the fall. In the meantime, we will keep going; the need is now and the need is great. We hope to pick up funding from a few other sources and take advantage of generous offers of help from one or more trade unions and contractor friends. Even so, we figure that we’ll need at least another $50,000 to $75,000 in contributions from people like you if we’re going to make this project happen, if we’re going to be able to offer aid and comfort to folks who have no place to go, no one to whom they can turn.
No hard sell here. If you find it in your heart to give some of what you’ve been blessed with, we’ll be happy to take it and put every penny of it into this project. Each of us can do a little so that together we can do a lot . . . We can do for others as we would have others do for us.
You can send your tax-deductible contribution to us at PO Box 1621, Newburgh, NY 12551. Every penny will go to support this project.
 Meet Terri Orzechowski
We never met Terri. We’re sorry for that. Now, a dozen years after cancer claimed her life, she seems larger than life, a superhero who overcame great odds to become who she was – a simple person who heard the Gospel call to serve “the least of these” and threw her whole self into her response.
Terri’s work, her refusals to accept “no” for an answer are legend. When the well-known NYC television news reporter Gabe Pressman asked her where she would get the funding to run Our Lady, Terri gave him her stock answer – “The Lord will provide.”
Indeed, the Lord did provide. There was always enough.
From a child’s toy to a heaping plate of food to bus fare to visit an ailing parent, it is estimated that Terri’s long loving arms embraced more than 15,000 people during her years at Our Lady.
|
