Durham Rescue Mission Success Grant
Durham Rescue Mission In A Nutshell
What
The mission of the Durham Rescue Mission is to meet, through the power of Jesus Christ, the needs of the whole person - spiritual, educational, emotional, physical, vocational, and social - so that those who are hurting may become fully functioning members of society.
Why
One cold November evening in 1974, the Durham Rescue Mission opened for business. The first guest didn’t stay long. The mission had no heat. The only way to keep warm was bundling under homemade quilts. There was no hot water. After a breakfast of powdered milk and Pink Panther cereal, that first guest had had enough and left the mission to find better accommodations.
Thirty years later, the Durham Rescue Mission’s clients stay days, weeks, months, even years. Their quarters are snug, warm and bright. Food is plentiful and varied. From a dilapidated winos’ hangout, the operation has grown to occupy a former church building at East Main Street and Alston Avenue, several nearby houses and a 130 room motel building, Good Samaritan Inn, once notorious for drugs and prostitution.
The mission offers shelter, safety and restored lives to the homeless and the addicted. For many, if not most, the offer is one last chance to avoid a lonely, despairing death. It is a Christian mission, established and run by a preacher with close-up and personal knowledge of the damage a chemical can do. “He hates alcohol, but he loves the person,” said Lynn Holloway, a recovering cocaine addict and former Rescue Mission resident now its chaplain and education director. “He’s genuine. His love is for real.”
In its first four months of operation, the Rescue Mission aided 27 men. In 2007, it served an average of 165 men, women and children per day. Last year the mission provided the Triangle with services worth $4.6 million. The figures are conservative, valuing a night’s lodging at $30, a meal at $5 and vocational training at $10 an hour. The Rescue Mission began with one young couple with a calling in a strange town. “We had no friends in 1974,” Mills said. “Now we have thousands.”
Durham Rescue Mission's Program
Program Services include:
- Men’s Division
- Women and Children’s Division
- Family Services
- Victory Programs
- Operation Warm and Cold Shelter
- Apprenticeship Program
- Vocational Training
- Temps to the Rescue
Community Services
- Annual Easter Community Dinner and Easter Basket Give-Away
- Annual Back to School Party and Backpack Give-Away
- Annual Thanksgiving Day Community Dinner and Winter Coat Give-Away
- Annual Christmas Community Dinner and Toys for the Children Give-Away
- Rescued Treasures Thrift Shoppe
Durham Rescue Mission's Team
Rev. Ernie & Gail Mills
Founders
Executive Directors and Co-Founders, Ernie and Gail Mills, came to Durham in 1974 with a passion to help alcoholics. A son of a sharecropper Ernie, at the young age of 15, lost his father to cirrhosis of the liver. Seeing that no one ever helped his dad, the Lord laid it on Ernie’s heart to reach out to the addicted. After graduating Bible college, Ernie worked at the Winston Salem Rescue Mission for 5 years. While there, the Lord laid it upon his heart to come to Durham. 34 years later, the Durham Rescue Mission is the largest and oldest shelter in Durham offering a “helping hand up, not a hand out” to the Triangle’s homeless, helpless, hungry, and hurting.
Rev. Lacy Frye
President
Danny Ottaway
Vice President
Rev. Charles Churchill
Secretary / Treasuer
Rev. Dan Walser
Chaplain
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