Ty Pennington and Guaranteed Rate came to Haywood County on September 26 2014 after the community won the first ever Give Back Challenge! The goal being to create a facility that will serve the homeless and get the lives of individuals back on track.
A wonderful recovery message was shared by Richie Tannerhill a friend and recovery allie (who is a person in long-term recovery supporting others on their recovery journey). Listen as he shares his heart:
Exerpt from Casey Blake's Sept 26th Article of Citizen Times
"WAYNESVILLE — Never has there been such excitement in Haywood County to watch a man run a table saw or paint the trim on an old building.
But the excitement ran high Thursday as celebrity carpenter Ty Pennington joined volunteers to flip the old Hazelewood prison in Waynesville into a new shelter and halfway house for former inmates, a project that gained national attention after winning the Guaranteed Rate Ultimate Give Back Challenge.
"Honestly I came here expecting Alcatraz," Pennington said with a laugh Thursday. "I thought, wow, how are we going to turn this into a warm, inviting environment?"
"This is pretty unprecedented in my mind," he said. "I have never heard of anyone doing this, flipping a prison into a shelter or a soup kitchen. But the minute I heard it I thought this is genius... this is making this space be what a prison really should be, which is about rehabilitation instead of just storage."
The Haywood Pathways Project won the grand prize in the Guaranteed Rate/Ty Pennington Ultimate Neighborhood Giveback Challenge, which awarded the project with $50,000 toward the completion of the project and Pennington's help for a day.
More than 3,500 people voted for the project over more than 50 others submitted earlier this year.
"There was obviously some very big support for this idea, which is just such a cool thing to see," he said. "It's a place where we can give people second chances, and everyone deserves that."
The Haywood Pathways project will recycle and restore the old Hazelwood prison, converting the facility into a soup kitchen, homeless shelter and halfway house.
Sherriff Greg Christopher, who spearheaded the project along with reverend Nick Honerkamp, said the support from volunteers, community leaders and even neighbors has been "overwhelming."
"I go to church with these inmates every Sunday," Christopher said Thursday. "And what I always tell them is that they aren't destined to wear an orange jumpsuit. That's not what they were put here to do."
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