Hi there!

As the caretaker of, and caregiver at Chapman House Community Center, I would like to take a moment to introduce myself and Chapman House.
My name is Marnie Schwartz-Hanley & I moved to West Pelzer in June of 1996 from Greenville. I had a little apartment on Drake Street before I found my house on Welborn. I used to have big cookouts outside that tiny apartment hosting “orphan Sunday” for anyone without a place to go. I worked at Bi-Lo while I worked at the mill, and then went full time when the mill started cutting back on production only to eventually close. I went back to school and in 2010, I graduated with honors from Greenville Technical College with a degree in Human Services and a desire to help out in our community.
Chapman House Community Center was birthed out of a conversation I had with Mr. H.T. (Tom) Chapman about having a place to go for folks in our area, if ever they needed anything. They’ve entrusted us with the care and upkeep of Chapman House & we are grateful that West Pelzer Councilman Randall Ledford maintains the front property as he is able! The Eagle Scouts have plans to do a project to help beautify Chapman House with benches & more landscaping and we have volunteers from our community & local schools helping out as well. Dollar General graciously collected over 40 bags of canned goods and other food products and merchandise during their Food Drive in May. One by one this can be won.
We have become a resource center, a navigation tool, a budding time bank and sometimes a shoulder to cry on. Originally, we thought it would be fun to do crafts and work with children to make reading more enjoyable but when we started seeing the need some of our neighbors were in…well, let’s just say God had different plans for the little house at 38 Main Street.
While we’ve been meeting people and helping them keep their faith in their fellow man, they have helped us see that what we need most, more so than jobs and food is to show grace and mercy to our fellow man & to be a beacon of light unto those neighbors who are having a hard time managing in a world that is pressing in on all sides. Some folks have long since lost their way from a church family, or perhaps never had one. When people’s basic physical needs for food and shelter are threatened, or lost, despair sets in, sometimes with depression close behind. A hand up out the darkness can often turn people back to the light & we know of many folks who returned or joined a church once they felt they could look presentable and had a little dignity restored. It is nothing short of a miracle how far a cup of cold water in His name can carry someone.
This is where y’all come in. We have it pretty well fixed at costing around $500 a month to run Chapman House, and that’s only being open 2 or 3 days a week. Some costs are fixed, like internet for $20 a month, but the power goes up in the summer and the gas goes up to heat in the winter. No one draws any pay to be there helping out, so be super nice when you go in. Our volunteers are angels! We have a thrift store with beautiful donations we sell to help with keeping the lights on and the gas bill paid but sometimes there are more people coming in that have needs, than want to buy a new purse and some blue jeans (SALE!! $5!!) We are hoping once folks know more about what we’re doing in our community, you’ll want to help too, either by coming on board to do some of the physical work, or maybe sew different seeds of time or money or even old shoes and coats!
We’re currently open on Mondays, Thursdays & Fridays from 8-11am. We also have a support group that meets on the third Tuesday of each month at 7 to help people with hepatitis C virus, a global pandemic infecting over 200 million people around the world, and over 5 million Americans! We seek to have after school hours for a game day and Storytime in the Park, but none of these things are possible without your participation, either by bringing your kids by or helping out yourself, so stop in when you’re able, or call or write for more info! We’d love to see you and see how we can make this the best place to live in the Upstate!

Thank you and May God Bless You and Keep You!

Marnie Schwartz-Hanley
Chapman House Community Center
38 Main Street
West Pelzer, SC 29669
864.906.7660 ChapmanHouseSC@att.net

Now you can buy beautiful flowers to support our beautiful gardens!

Time banking is founded on five principles:

• Everyone is an asset.

• Some work is beyond a monetary price.

• Reciprocity in helping.

• Social networks are necessary.

• Respect for all human beings.

and it certainly beats waiting for tax cuts to create jobs!

Join us & get what you need by giving what you can!

We are truly here for you all! You are NEVER alone!
God Bless You All, and God Bless America!

Take a look at these figures!

We recently had the opportunity to listen to the Faces of Homelessness Speakers Bureau at Greenville Technical College. Bobby, Henry, Paul & Dawna all shared their stories of poverty and despair. Some became homeless through addiction but some, like Paul & Dawna were homeless periodically as children, a cycle that continues for Paul to this day though he is now in school and hopeful for his future for the first time in his young life. This is the most heartbreaking, especially in our country in this day and age!

The efforts of Chapman House Community Center have kept some families from losing their homes, but what they really need are jobs. We hope that the work is coming but it won’t get here soon enough for some. It seems like each week we get a phone call from someone who filled out an application for help a little too late to stave off eviction & impending homelessness. We are concerned about young families with small children as well as our seniors and not yet seniors.

If you know a senior who is on social security only, please see if we may be of assistance. By going to the Benefit Bank website (www.thebenefitbank.com) you can do a quick check for Grandma or your neighbor if you have a trusting relationship with them and they are comfortable sharing their personal information. Our senior folks are tough, and have been through amazing events in their lifetimes but nothing prepared some of them for the incredible generosity of years they been afforded combined with low interest rates and non-existent pensions, rising costs of living and increased need for healthcare.

One of the most frustrating, reoccurring interactions we have on a regular basis at Chapman House are folks in their late 40’s or early to mid 50’s who’ve just lost jobs they worked hard at for years and all we can do is encourage them to go back to school for now, if they’re able because unless they start their own business, there is nothing out there. And some do just that. We can help with the FAFSA, and we have a computer available for public use. We’re opening special hours for tutoring when needed and are always available for homework help.

The status quo cannot go on much longer from what we see in very small town Southern America. If you want to see the great divide in classes you can drive from one end of the street to the other in our neighborhood, and many other neighborhoods. Some of our smaller mill towns have almost disappeared, businesses leaving people behind without jobs or services. There are so many factors that went into what has made the conditions what they are today. It won’t get better overnight, but if we want to emerge out of this “recession” with any shred of decency and humanity we must never underestimate the power of compassion for others, especially when they are going through hard times. It’s what we would want done for us and it is a way to share the Divine, right here on earth.

While we’re in there, we might be reading, or watching Scooby Doo (VHS tapes wanted please!), helping someone with homework, playing chess, proofreading someone’s resume’, assisting someone with an application for work, using the Benefit Bank portal to fill out the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) to return to college, or SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), which is more commonly known as food stamps.

For those who are fortunate enough to not know anything about food stamps, they aren’t actually stamps anymore. Technology has moved us into the 21^st century with a debit card. Each month, an amount is deposited in an account for a family to use to buy food. We help working people who are struggling to make ends meet. These are hardworking people who do not want to be filling out this application. They WANT to work!

Sometimes I read too much news. I stopped watching while listening to it after the 1^st Gulf war and prefer to read it, so I can look away if it gets to be too much. I read a quote the other day that left me furious.

“Perhaps its time to focus less on making poverty comfortable, and more on creating the prosperity that will get people out of poverty.”, Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute states in his New York Times opinion piece entitled, “Little Bang for the Buck”[1]

I do not meet anyone who is comfortable with the mere assurance that they will be able to eat, though it offers strong relief when they are still concerned about the roof, the power to heat the food, the gas to put in the car to look for work that isn’t for miles and God forbid anyone get sick, because no one has insurance. One of the biggest blessings we are bringing is the ability for young mother’s to be sure they have health insurance for their young ones though. No one should have to worry about going into debt if they get sick.

I do not think there is an effort to make poverty comfortable as much as what I am seeing as Work Supports to help FAMILIES who are underemployed  afford gas and water without having to be concerned that those expenses would cut into the grocery bill. It’s hard to get your job done if you don’t know if you’ll have dinner that night.

In my beautiful corner of the Upstate, we have so many grandparents raising the grandkids and when they’re living on social security income, they can be burdened and do without things many of us consider necessity for our children. Pride keeps many folks from receiving aid in the form of their own tax dollars back in their pocket and paid in full to the nearest grocery store. A late notice from the power company will sometimes nudge them in our direction and the look of relief is what keeps me coming back week after week with hardly any idea of how we’re going to keep this going.

Companies are laying people off to hire new folks and hopefully they’ll add some jobs so when this wicked game of musical job chairs ends there will be lower unemployment in an area that is already higher than the national average. Our Senators just voted NO again, to more aid for drowning families, and their NO is such an insult to the mother of three who works two jobs and still can’t keep the lights on. It is a slap in the face to the men who worked hard in the mills they sold to China. Our people cannot live on a bumper crop of okra!

So, what are we doing in there? We’re offering those who are thirsty, a cup of cold water, in a crystal goblet to refresh & restore and give people back a sense of dignity and hope. We play games, and laugh; we hold hands and cry; we are that shoulder, that ear, that place to go, when you honestly don’t know where else to go.

Maybe you’re reading this, and you have no idea what I’m talking about. I’m so glad to know there are people unscathed by the destruction wrought from a receding economy. I meet wonderful people who were working hard before the jobs started disappearing now on the brink of losing everything and it is a stress and pressure no one should have to face alone.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/09/16/rising-poverty-and-the-social-safety-net/little-bang-for-the-anti-poverty-program-buck?scp=3&sq=cato%20institute&st=cse

Hwy 8, or Main Street as we adoringly call it here in West Pelzer was aflutter with cars, trucks and SUVs festoon with flags and banners bearing the famous orange Tiger Paw of Clemson.

Clemson vs. North Texas

We decided to pull out all the orange clothing ( & we had a bunch!) from the thrift room and decorate the outside of Chapman House with it along with the $1 summer shoe box and $3 rack of summer clearance tops and the big box-o-free stuff. Our Child Activity Director helped decorate a “Go Tigers!” sign and we attached it to the pole by the road.

More people are stopping in. Clothing is starting to move out the door quicker. We even helped someone with the Benefit Bank in the midst of all this Saturday fun and the results for this young family will make an enormous difference in their lives and in our community. Many hard working people in our neighborhoods are working poor. $7.50 an hour doesn’t go very far toward rent and other utilities, especially if there are children in the home. Having access to get to county office to receive services can often be a job in itself. Women with small children and no support system are sometimes trapped in their homes with no way to go anywhere unless someone will take them, with the babies and then wait, sometimes hours only to perhaps not have all the right paperwork & documents, only to have to try to return.

Now, parents can come to Chapman House Community Center, with their children and feel comfortable knowing they are safe and their children are enjoying their time, maybe even working on their homework on one of our computers or watching educational videos with other children. They have a place to go, get help, unwind, read a magazine, buy some clothes (CHEAP!) and most importantly, meet with other moms to have some adult conversation, some Girlfriend Time, which studies have shown, make us girls feel better. Science in action, right here on Main Street!

Oh, and the game…Clemson 35; North Texas 10.

Yep, another beautiful day in the neighborhood.