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Isaiah 117 readies for spring build
For more than a year, an effort has been afoot to give local children a place to go on their very worst day.
The local chapter of Isaiah 117 House has been raising awareness and funds to build a home where children go on the day the Department of Child Services has to remove them from a negative situation at home.
Now that a site has been donated on the south side of Greencastle and the build approved by the City Board of Zoning Appeals and Plan Commission, the next step is to get started with the build.
To do so, though, the organization will need the help of local contractors.
On Friday, Isaiah 117 hosted a contractors luncheon at 3 Fat Labs Wedding and Event Center hoping to attract local contractors to help with the effort.
Bill Mentgen, owner of both Energy Conservation Solutions and 3 Fat Labs, has already volunteered his services as general contractor on the project.
On Friday, he appealed to his fellow contractors regarding the upcoming project.
“I can’t tell you how much of a need we have in our county for this,” Mentgen said.
He went on to outline what he sees as a collaborative effort to provide various services when it comes to building and outfitting the house. These include excavation, foundation, framing, roofing, insulation, HVAC, windows and doors, trim, drywall, painting, furniture, gutters, driveway and patios, landscape and security.
The hope is to get plenty of local contractors to either volunteer their services or at least provide them at cost in such a way that no one gets overwhelmed.
“I don’t want any one contractor to have the burden of the full trade,” Mentgen said. “We’ve got enough talented contractors in Putnam County. If we only get one, we’ll find them some help.”
In this spirit, Friday’s lunch was a chance for contractors from across the spectrum to not only volunteer their own expertise, but to recruit and refer colleagues who may not have been in attendance.
Prior to Mentgen’s comments, program co-coordinators Rissa Shepherd and Courtney Miller welcomed those in attendance and told them a bit more about Isaiah 117.
Shepherd explained the three-fold goals of the program.
The first goal is to reduce the trauma for children on the day they are removed from their homes by DCS.
“They lose everything that’s familiar to them,” Shepherd said, explaining that she had always thought of removal day as a good thing for the children, not understanding that even in bad situations, it’s the only world they know.
The second goal is to come alongside DCS caseworkers and make their jobs a little easier by providing an office space inside the house as well as care for the children from a program volunteer.
The third goal is to make it easier for foster families to say yes. Not only does the program provide time for them to prepare to welcome a child or children into their homes, it can provide needed supplies like diapers, car seats, clothes and other necessities.
“We can offer whatever our foster families need to say yes,” Shepherd said.
As much as anything, the house should be a welcoming place for the children.
“They can play in that house,” Shepherd said. “They can just enjoy being in a place that looks unlike, probably, anywhere they’ve ever been before.”
Isaiah 117 started as the vision of one woman, Ronda Paulson, in Carter County, Tenn., in 2017. Since that first house was completed in northeast Tennessee, the effort has spread across seven states in the South and Midwest.
The Putnam County site will be one of seven in Indiana and will also serve children in Morgan, Owen, Clay and Parke counties.
It’s all been a faith-based effort for both Paulson and for Shepherd.
For Paulson, it was a call early in the writings of the prophet Isaiah — Isaiah 1:17 in fact — to “defend the fatherless.”
For Shepherd, it came from the New Testament, a similar admonition in James 1:27 “to look after orphans and widows in their distress.”
Any local contractors who may not have been at Friday’s lunch but would like to help “defend the fatherless” and “look after orphans” are urged to contact Shepherd at rissa.shepherd@isaiah117house.com or 423-518-3760 ext. 128.
Anyone wishing to learn more may also visit www.isaiah117house.com.