RICHLAND COUNTY, S.C. — Love Mercy Ministry of Chapin Baptist Church hopes its playroom project at the Richland County Department of Social Services Office helps families feel more comfortable.
"We reached out to Richland County DSS, and actually all the counties in the Midlands, and asked how we could serve them and what the greatest need we could meet is," Love Mercy Ministry founder Becky Pressley said. "We wanted to do something to make it a safe, beautiful, welcoming, hopeful place for them."
Pressley said the team put out the call for donations and volunteers to make their mission possible.
"The community and our church just passed our expectations and fulfilled that entire amazon wish list well over probably $5,000 worth of items," Pressley said. "We had a clean-out day, we painted, laid new flooring, put in new baseboards. Then we had a day where we assembled all the furniture. Then we had an install day where we mounted TVs and put books on shelves and Legos in bins."
It's a place Pressley hopes will help kids during a difficult time, "a place to land, a room to pass the time, and have things to do to, maybe just distract them from what's going on in their lives for a little while."
Connelly-Anne Ragley, Director of Communication at the South Carolina Department of Social Services says, "It's really Godsent, and really a refresher for our building."
"It can really be a welcoming and warm space for families to heal, where we can help strengthen our families and move towards our goal of reunification and really strengthening families in South Carolina," Ragley said.