Hope Gospel Mission Newsletter 8 S. Farwell
St. Eau Claire, WI 54701 715-552-5566 Fall 2001
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Page Three From Our Board The Community Table Lease Termination "We are grateful to the Community Table for their help these past three years." Last month
there was a lot of press on the subject of Hope Gospel Mission terminating our
lease with the Community Table. (They are a nonprofit group that rents space m
our building to provide free meals to the public.) We believe that the Mission
was portrayed in a negative light by some of the articles. As a result, I am
writing this article to help clear up some of the confusion. When we
acquired our building in December of 1998, the Community Table was already
leasing space from the previous owner. At that time, we saw them as a real
benefit to the Mission. First, they paid the Mission rent, which at the time was
our only income. This helped us to meet the expenses of the building until
donations started coming in. Second, the meals they provided were a benefit to
our men and one less meal per day that the We initially
started out with a one-year lease that expired at the end of 1999. This lease
had a provision in it that allowed them to rent on a month-to-month basis.
Several attempts were made at negotiating a new lease over the past two years.
The Community table always wanted a longer-term lease (one to three years) with
multiple options to renew. The Mission
wanted a month-to-month lease with a six-month notice from either party to
terminate. The Mission felt it was necessary to have this flexibility in case we
needed more space. Unfortunately,
we were unable to come up with a lease that fit the needs of both parties. In addition
to this, we had experienced another problem over the past year. We call it the
“too many cooks in the kitchen” syndrome. This problem was causing much
stress on the staff of both parties, and it was only expected to worsen as the
Mission grows. Imagine,
if you will, two families living in your As a result
of these things, our board met at the end of August to decide what to do. We
decided that it was in the long-term best interests of both parties to continue
working together in separate facilities. As a
formality, we gave the Community Table the required 30-day notice under the
original lease agreement. The following
statement was also made in our letter, “Realizing that you may. need more than
a month to move, we are willing to reasonably extend the time period if
necessary.” It was never
our intention to force Community Table out within 30 days, or to interrupt their
service. Unfortunately some of the articles made it sound that way. We have
since met with members of the Community Table Board and are working on an
additional 60-day extension for them until December 1, 2001. We are
grateful to the Community Table for their help with the Mission these past three
years. We look forward to working with them in transition and beyond. Hopefully
this will clear up the confusion so both our organizations can move forward with
the more important task of helping the poor. Mark
Donnelly, President Hope Gospel Mission How We Have Served The following numbers reflect a close approximation of the number of people the Mission has assisted from July through September 2001. We have supervised 4 men and 2 women at the Mission through the Community Service Program during this period. We continue to minister the gospel to the men who stay here through the help of a local church.
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