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Church readies apartments for displaced families

By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@TheCitizen.com

First Baptist Church of Peachtree City will host roughly 60 refugees from Hurricane Katrina in the three apartment buildings it owns just across the street from its sanctuary.

Volunteers were hard at work Sunday afternoon moving furniture, decorating and stocking the apartments with food for the families.

The families were scheduled to move in Tuesday, and they will be staying rent-free through January with all utilities paid, said Kenneth Brown, executive pastor of First Baptist Church.

The church hadn’t yet decided what to do with the vacant apartments “until the need arose to clean them up and fill them up,” Brown said.

Each Sunday School class adopted one of the families, pledging to provide furniture, decorations and other comforts to each apartment.

The effort to refurbish the apartments was assisted by non-church members, Brown said.

“We’re doing this to honor the Lord, to show God’s love to these people,” said volunteer Susan Dykes.

Three of the apartments will go to one large group of related families, said volunteer Ann Latham. One of the expected “renters” was a 65-year-old man who had to flee his home, Latham added.

“How do you start over at 65?” she said.

Church volunteers will also check in routinely on the families to make sure they’re getting adjusted to Peachtree City life, Latham said.