New Leaders Guide Salvation Army Lewisville Through Transition Phase
Since moving to North Texas from Florida in 2022, Majors Dwayne and Marion Durham have spent much of their time completing the merger of two Salvation Army facilities in Lewisville. This is in addition to overseeing the Denton center since this past June.
After many years at its previous building near Old Town, the organization first rented from and later acquired the former First Christian Church facility on Fox Avenue east of Edmonds Lane. The Fox Avenue property allows the agency the room to better assist people dealing with homelessness, poverty, and/or addiction. This includes serving 10,000 lunches annually every day except Saturdays. “It’s a much larger space that we occupy here,” said Dwayne. “At the old place people sometimes had to wait outside to have their meal. Here, we can serve everyone at the same time so far. When we came in, all of this was starting to come into play. The renovations had started happening and coordinating the two facilities.”
The Durhams are ordained ministers and commissioned officers in the Salvation Army. They have been with the agency for nearly three decades – 8 1/2 in Maryland, two in Kentucky, and 15 in Florida, most recently in Ocala, before moving to Texas. They replaced long-time Lewisville Service Director Stephen Thomas after he took on a larger role as Service Extension Director working with 260 service units in Texas. “When Stephen had oversight, it was strictly a service center,” Durham said. Now, it is officially called the Salvation Army Lewisville Corps Center for Worship and Service.
Among the opportunities afforded at its newer home is a chapel to conduct weekly services, showers available Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and pantry days on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Ministry programs focus on men’s and women’s groups, youth and adult bands, and adult songsters. Updates have included building a commercial kitchen, an expanded food pantry with an outside entrance and loading dock, and private showers. The facility also serves as an overnight warming station for the winter months and a cooling station for the summer.
Following nearly two years of work updating the facility, a “renovation celebration” was held in late August. Unfortunately, some of those features have required repeat renovation after water from a broken pipe in October caused some damage delaying the new choice pantry program. Not affected at all was the Old Town Community Garden left behind by the church and preserved as a stipulation to receive a federal block grant to help pay for the renovations. “I was grateful we were able to keep our volunteers because we have a great group of (6-7) daily volunteers who come in,” Durham said. It takes between 25-30 overall volunteers to assist the Durhams and their two other full-time and one part-time staff with some sent to places like North Carolina and Florida to aid hurricane relief efforts.
One of the full-time people is case manager Pragati Joshi. “She works through their cases and their situations,” Durham said. “She might be able to help them with rental assistance or amenities. We have prescription assistance. If people need to go to a job interview or a doctor’s appointment, we have gas cards we can help them with that.”
Dunham loves telling the story told through a Salvation Army television commercial of a mother with a couple of kids in her car in a parking lot after being evicted from their residence. “A guy taps on her window and says, ‘you can’t stay here,’” he said. “She’s just trying to find a place and as she comes across a bell ringer and beautifully tells the story of why we’re doing what we’re doing. It then cuts to a scene of her getting housing through us. It’s really beautiful.”
With Christmas nearly upon us, the Salvation Army is wrapping up its Red Kettle (bell ringer) and Angel Tree programs. But between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, people can host their
own virtual red kettles. That goes to the goal of $100,000 too,” Durham said. “You can ask people to give to that. This is our biggest fund-raising time of the year.”
For information on how you can help, please visit salvationarmyntx.org
