wfn.org | UMNS# 635-Trustees plan to start rebuilding Gulfside center

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Trustees plan to start rebuilding Gulfside center

Nov. 10, 2005

NOTE: Photographs are available at http://umns.umc.org.

A UMNS Report
By Kathy L. Gilbert*

Hurricane Katrina washed away the United Methodist Church's historic
Gulfside Assembly retreat center Aug. 29, but plans are in the works to
bring the center back to life.

"We will rebuild," said Mollie M. Stewart, president of the Gulfside
Board of Trustees. A committee headed by the Rev. Earl Bledsoe will look
at rebuilding and determining what programs are needed now and for the
future.

"Previously we were always challenged to build around how a new
structure would look in relation to the other buildings," Stewart said.
"We don't have that challenge now. We can determine for the future what
Gulfside needs to look like."

Gulfside Director Marian Martin, who lost everything in the storm, has
relocated to an office in Atlanta. The office is on the campus of Gammon
Theological Seminary.

The board of trustees, meeting Oct. 13-14 in Atlanta, also voted to pay
down the center's debt and work to establish a relationship with Federal
Emergency Management Agency.

The board wants to strike a relationship with FEMA to have proceeds
coming in but also to act as a missional agency in the community for
people to live, Stewart said.

The board voted to pay three months' salary to the 10 employees who were
at Gulfside before the storm hit.

The hurricane's financial impact on Gulfside is not known yet. "We're
still working with the insurance companies," Stewart said. All of the
assembly's 14 buildings were lost. One of them, a residential building
that was left standing, will have to be demolished because of damage
from water and two trees that fell through the ceiling, she said.

A lot of clearing is needed, but all the staff and board members came
through the storm all right. "Everyone had some damage, but no one was
lost," Stewart said. "Everyone is in the recovery stage."

A Gulfside Recovery Fund has been set up, and all the board members are
looking for fund-raising opportunities, she said.

"Insurance won't replace Gulfside in total."

Bishop Robert E. Jones founded Gulfside in 1923 as a residential school
for African-American boys living in rural areas of the United States.
The center became a popular vacation and meeting spot during racial
segregation in the South. When the United Methodist Church integrated in
the late 1960s, the retreat center declined in usage but still hosted
meetings and conferences.

For information about the recovery fund, contact the Atlanta office at
80 Walnut St. SW, P.O. Box 92364, Atlanta, GA 30314; telephone: (404)
529-9715.

Donations to support the United Methodist response to Hurricane Katrina
can be made online at www.methodistrelief.org and by phone at (800)
554-8583. Checks can be written to UMCOR, designated for "Hurricanes
2005 Global," Advance No. 982523, and left in church offering plates or
mailed directly to UMCOR, P.O. Box 9068, New York, NY 10087-9068.

Gulfside receives funding in part through the denomination's Advance for
Christ and His Church. Donations can be designated for "Gulfside
Assembly Program," Advance Special No. 761337-2, or "Gulfside Assembly
Capital Fund," Advance Special No. 760235-1, and sent to the UMCOR
address.

*Gilbert is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in
Nashville, Tenn.

News media contact: Kathy L. Gilbert, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470
or newsdesk@umcom.org.

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United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://umns.umc.org