Local pastor hoping to make community impact with community center

BILOXI, Miss. (WLOX) - The Engage 1791 building located on Pass Road may just be an old structure to some, but to one pastor, it’s the beginning of a bright vision.

Pastor Carlus Page and his church New Heights is renovating the building to not only make it their new home but to make an impact in the community.

“We don’t want you to stay at the same level year after year after year,” said Pastor Carlus Page. “Not only do we want to meet people with their spiritual needs, but also with their holistic needs, socially, economically and even emotionally.”

It’s a mission that started with choosing the building in June of 2021, but it was met with several setbacks. Inflation is having a big impact, but that’s not stopping Pastor Page.

“We had to go back and restructure our budget and what the overall project was going to cost us,” said page. “This was a blank slate; we came in and did a little demolition of the previous structure that was standing on the inside and the interior built out.”

Pastor Page’s vision for the building is to be a church for regular worship and to be a community center for activities, such as making sure children have a space to do homework, classes for financial literacy, single-parent classes and even a place for transitional housing to make sure their church leaves a lasting impact.

“There’s just so much potential here,” said Christopher Becker. “There’s buildings surrounding us that’s not occupied at the moment and hopefully the foundation can purchase and use them for a part of this engage project.”

“Just to come in and see what this building looked like was representative of what this community was. And looking at where we are now, we want the community to reflect that improvement, rehabilitation and revival. And I believe we can be that catalyst for that,” said Page.

If you would like to help with the project, you can visit the church’s website as well as their social media pages.

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