ROCKINGHAM — People who finished ten years ago surprised the people who live in a local homeless shelter with a meal.
On homecoming weekend, the Richmond Senior High School Class of 2014 got together for the first time in 10 years at Liberty Place. Fuller’s Old-Fashioned BBQ of Fayetteville provided the food.
Fried chicken, bbq, macaroni and cheese, baked beans, hushpuppies, banana pudding, tea, and lemonade were some of the foods that were served at the class reunion.
After the event, there were several pans of food left over. To keep the food from going to waste, class members chose to give it to Place of Grace Campus in East Rockingham.
Pastor Gary Richardson of Place of Grace told the RO on Monday, “Thank you very much.” “Anything from the community is welcome.”
“The guys here liked it,” Richardson said. “They eat it for two days.”
In 2014, what would become Place of Grace began as a tent city on the Airport Road grounds of New Life Church. It took a while to rent a nearby building before the church built a new building on its own land two years later.
In 2018, Place of Grace made a deal with the county government to trade the church property for the old Rohanen Middle School.
Richardson says that Place of Grace can take 12 guys and 12 women at this time. There are nine guys and two women staying at the shelter right now.
Richardson said that Place of Grace is getting ready for its emergency shelter, which can hold 20 more people from November 1 to March 1, 2025.