Faith-based nonprofit in Ohio offers physical and spiritual support.
By Bobby Ross Jr. | The Christian Chronicle
LORAIN, Ohio — This struggling Rust Belt city of 64,000 souls can use a little hope.
A ship-building company, an automotive plant and steel mills along Lake Erie — at the mouth of the Black River — once provided thousands of jobs for the community 30 miles west of Cleveland.
But then came decades of deindustrialization: Jobs disappeared. Families moved away. The poverty rate shot up.
“The people of the city of Lorain have long been noted for embracing an ethic of hard work in the factories and mills that used to populate the area,” said Matt Raines, minister for the New Beginnings Church of Christ in the nearby town of Amherst. “Now, their hard work is channeled into merely surviving.”
To aid in that survival, a ministry called We Care We Share — with strong ties to the New Beginnings church — helps thousands of residents a year with food, clothing and services ranging from health fairs to job training.
This story appears in the January 2020 print edition of The Christian Chronicle.
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