Nonprofit Springboard Delaware breaks ground on a community center in Georgetown Friday.
Springboard opened a pallet village with 40 tiny homes last year for people experiencing homelessness.
The new community center will bring a computer lab, a telehealth conference room and a commercial kitchen to residents, along with staff offices.
Springboard cofounder Jeffrey Ronald said this systems approach is the way to help people.
“It's healthcare,” Ronald said. “It's a place to lay your head, stabilize and rebuild your life, and then it's new tools and resources that you need to have gainful employment.”
Not everyone moves on successfully from the village, but many learn new skills and reconnect with family, Ronald said.
Springboard already offers residents job training and health care resources. The new center will support those efforts – and host healing arts programs like art therapy and creative writing classes.
Georgetown’s mayor Bill West said the center will allow residents to build a sense of community.
“When these people have been in the woods and been by [themselves] for a long time, when you can put them together in a group and be able to communicate and network together and eat together, it gives them a chance to open up and help one another.”
West said he believes incoming governor Matt Meyer is looking to extend Springboard’s pallet village concept to Kent and New Castle Counties.
“An ounce of prevention truly is a pound of cure,” Ronald said.
Ronald called for political leaders from town lawmakers to incoming governor Matt Meyer to help make Delaware communities healthier and happier.
