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Multi-Purpose Chapel
A Project to Build a Multipurpose Chapel for Prisoners at BCC
Click Here to download a brochure
The mandate for ministry to prisoners is vivid both in Christian scripture and faith tradition and in the heritage and practice of other faiths. This mandate calls people of faith to visit those in prison and to seek to set the prisoners free. Three key factors help prisoners break the cycle of recidivism:
- strong faith commitments;
- positive, supporting personal relationships; and
- stable, rewarding work.
Listen to Dr. Micki Cabaniss - 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 (click the numbers for audio) Listen to Inmate Randy Shank - 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 (click the numbers for audio) These are things that people of faith can organize to help provide.
The Buncombe Correctional Center (BCC) was designed in 1989 by the NC Department of Corrections (DOC) as a minimum-security, work-release prison unit to be the last stop before a prisoner’s return to the community. Today, BCC houses 182 men and has only 39 work release “slots.” For prisoners BCC offers a solid variety of religious, educational, and re-entry programs conducted by the program staff, chaplain and/or dedicated community volunteers. Unfortunately, lack of appropriate program spaces at BCC severely limits prisoners’ participation in all re-entry programs and faith activities.
NC DOC now includes space for religious activities in all new prison facilities. Prisons built before the mid-1990s provided no such space. For over 20 years the NC DOC budget funded chaplains at its larger prison units. In 2002, for cost savings, the state eliminated one-third of the funded prison chaplain positions. At BCC the chaplain since 1997 is Rev. Steve Plemmons, whose salary comes in gifts from churches and individuals. Rev. Plemmons’ support is raised annually by BCC Prison Ministries, a non-profit organization formed to provide chaplaincy services at BCC.
Every NC prison unit is required to have a Community Resource Council (CRC), which is a committee appointed to stimulate community involvement and to promote volunteerism in the local correctional institution. In the early 1990s at Craggy Prison, which is a medium-security unit for 400 men adjacent to BCC off Riverside Drive in Weaverville, CRC volunteers and donors for the non-profit Craggy Prison Chapel Fund accomplished the building of a chapel. Now, the call to prison ministry is stirring in our community anew. In 2000 the BCC-CRC took initial steps toward a project to build a multipurpose chapel. The leadership engaged an architect to develop a design, floor plan, and site plan for the proposed chapel at BCC.
Among the early leaders of the BCC chapel effort was Dan Cabaniss, M.D. A memorial fund created after Dan’s untimely death in 2001 provides start-up resources to advance the project work on a multipurpose chapel to assist prisoners at BCC. Last year the project was revived under the CRC leadership of John Klees and Micki Cabaniss, M.D. Today, we are at the second step of a multi-step process that will include a capital campaign and many checkpoints of state approval before we can fully realize our ministry dreams for BCC prisoners. The BCC-CRC volunteers are building an organization to provide program development and future fundraising activities.
Gifts to support project work can be made to "The New Life Center, Inc.".
New Life Center
c/o Alie Klees, Treasurer
125 Caldonia Drive
Candler, NC 28715
The New Life Center, Inc. is a 501-c(3) non-profit, non-denominational organization. All gifts are tax deductible to the fullest extent allowable by law. |
