As 2011 winds down, now is the time to make those last-minute donations to include on your 2011 tax returns.

Looking for some last minute tax-deductible giving opportunities that don’t just help you out on your taxes but also benefit families?

The Fuller Center of Northwest Louisiana Inc, has completed 43 new homes, 53 Greater Blessing (Rehab) projects.

We are excited about completing Fuller Grocery at 300 North Allen and the opening of Fuller Surplus Store in 2012.

We celebrated the this holiday by blessing our homeowners and neighbors with toys from the Toys for Tots program to our families that had children 11 years of age or younger, in addition we received some special donations from some dear friends and supports for three of our families that experience extreme hardship this year.

Thanks to the Kiwanis Club of Shreveport & Brookshire’s Spirit of Christmas Food Drive some of our most distressed families and community residences also received food baskets this holiday season.

We would like to thank each and every one of you for showing the spirit of Christ this Holiday season.

Sincerely,

Lee A. Jeter, Sr.
Executive Director
Fuller Center for Housing NWLA

Be part of the Fuller Legacy and purchase a memorial brick at the Gazebo in Millard Fuller Park.

In honor of Millard Fuller, The Fuller Center for Housing of Northwest Louisiana will be building a gazebo surrounded by memorial bricks. We are honoring Millard and the work he accomplished.

This gazebo will be located in the future community park at on Alston Street in Allendale in Shreveport. The gazebo will be build in early 2012.

We are selling 1200 bricks for this project. Each brick costs only $50.00. There are 4 lines of engraving each 18 characters long. Please, help our ministry by ordering your brick today.

These engraved pavers will make a lasting, personal contribution from you in this community park. Beautifully finished these pavers are 8″ x 4″ in size and are made from natural shale and hard-fired for years of enduring beauty.

What can you put on your brick?

• You can dedicate this in honor or memorial of a family member or loved one
• Your family can have their own brick
• Your business can sponsor a brick
• Or maybe a favorite quote or bible passage

Order Your Brick Today

Click on the “Buy Now” button below. You will be taken to PayPal were you can purchase your brick. After you have purchased your brick you will be taken to a order form. On the form you will be able to specify the 4 lines of text that you want to appear on your memorial brick.

Only $50.00 for this lasting gift to the Fuller Center

Saturday, former and current MBA students took to the freshly power-washed exterior of the future grocery site to spruce it up with a fresh coat of paint, a major sign of progress, said Lee Jeter, executive director of The Fuller Center.

“This is our way of showing this community that the grocery store we have been talking about for so long is coming to fruition,” he said. “It allows them to still believe and show them that we still believe in this community.”

Chris Martin, dean of Centenary’s Business School, said students from the MBA program often analyze nonprofit and for-profit companies as part of their studies, but The Fuller Center’s project is one that they continue to revisit.

“We’re so excited to be able to be a part of the progress of this store,” he said. “This goes beyond the classroom or the computer screen. We’re able to see the project from the beginning to now, and it’s so great to help with that.”

Cindy Gleason Johnson was among the students in Centenary’s MBA program who helped The Fuller Center develop its plans. She said she is eager to see the grocery store come to life.

“It’s a great step toward getting a quality grocery store for this community,” she said. “So many in this neighborhood are without transportation or may have another reason they cannot travel very far. This puts a quality food business in an area that really needs it.”

Jeter said there is still a long way to go before the grocery store is completed. The Fuller Center is awaiting word on two grants to fund the project. Jeter said any local businesses from electricians to plumbers who would be willing to donate their services would be invaluable at this juncture.

“We are one of the few organizations where 100 percent of donations go directly to the communities we serve,” he said. “There is not one dime that goes to administrative costs or anything like that. Our goal is to put as much into these communities as possible.”

Written by Mary Nash-Wood – The Shreveport Times

Dianne Fuller, left, and others tour the revitalized Allendale community.

SHREVEPORT, La. – While volunteers hammered away at the Millard Fuller Legacy Build in Minden 30 miles away, a group gathered Wednesday in the Allendale community to view how The Fuller Center for Housing with its Northwest Louisiana covenant partner has transformed a once drug-fueled, crime-ridden community into a flourishing oasis for families.

The most recent of the 43 Fuller Center houses built in Allendale.

In 2005, Allendale became a springboard for The Fuller Center’s ever-growing mission to help other communities enjoy similar transformations and help lift more families out of poverty housing. The Fuller Center did not start out as an organization intent on transforming entire communities. What happened in Allendale shaped the entire mission of The Fuller Center.

“The Fuller Center went to Shreveport as a result of Hurricane Katrina to help with some of the refugees who’d fled the storm,” Fuller Center for Housing President David Snell said. “What came out of Allendale was one of the greatest examples of community renewal.”

The trip to Shreveport had a second purpose. FCH of Northwest Louisiana and homeowners in the neighborhood have planted a live oak tree in honor of Glen Barton, the former vice president of U.S. field operations who died in August.

THE TRANSFORMATION

Few are more passionate in talking about the transformation than Lee Jeter, an ex-Marine who leads the Fuller Center of Northwest Louisiana. He’s seen the change in the hearts of the community, in the lives of families and in statistics.

New Allendale Homes

“We want you to look around at the change in this community,” Jeter told the crowd assembled at Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament church on the edge of the neighborhood. “The crime rate has dropped 80 percent since The Fuller Center began building homes in the Allendale community. People in this community who didn’t trust anybody are now beginning to trust us.”

The group walked the streets of dozens of homes. Lee pointed out where a liquor store once stood and was the hub of undesirable community activity, as well as “The Hill,” where drug use and crime was rampant. “The Hill” is no more, only a beautiful slope of homes with the sights and sounds of children playing.

“We’ve got do what Jesus said, to go there and spread the gospel, and change this world one community and one house at a time,”. That is our mission. That is our calling. That’s why we’re here. That’s what we’re supposed to do.”

GLEN BARTON

Tree planted for Glen Barton

When Fuller Center co-founder Millard Fuller was encouraged to step in and see if he could help lift up the impoverished Allendale community, he said yes. And he immediately turned to Glen Barton to become his “boots on the ground” in Shreveport. Barton, who had worked with Fuller at Habitat for Humanity, accepted the challenge.

And Allendale was forever changed.

“Glen Barton went to Shreveport on a short-term basis to help get the project started, but he wound up staying almost two years there,” Snell said. “And in doing so, he became a friend to countless people there. He put folks into houses, and they are truly grateful.”

A testament to his service to the community now grows in the heart of the neighborhood, a live oak tree planted in his memory. At a service around the tree Wednesday, letters and poems were read, songs were sung, and thankful homeowners wiped away tears and hugged Glen’s widow, Brenda Barton.

“It was a really positive experience to go back and see all the things that had changed and the growth,” Brenda said of the visit. “Seeing the homeowners that we’d worked with was really heartwarming. It was really good to see how everything’s continuing to grow.

“Glen would definitely be very proud of the way it’s continuing,” she added. “Not only he and Millard, but there were so many who came in and gave so much. And many are here at the Legacy Build. It took a lot of people to do it.”

Brenda Barton gets a hug from a homeowner as Lee Jeter looks on.

Of course, Brenda wasn’t the only one wiping away a few tears when the tour arrived at the live oak tree planted in his honor. Felicia Sewell was one of those. And her young daughters Makaila and Miracle were especially fond of Glen Barton.

“He always was working,” Sewell said. “He had the tenacity to make things happen. He did whatever it took for the homeowners here to get into our homes. And I will forever remember his smile, and he and Brenda coming in on Saturdays and Sundays working late into the evening. They were a blessing to my family. If it wasn’t for Glen Barton, I wouldn’t be here today.”

“Glen had worked for Habitat for Humanity, leading one of its regional offices in this part of the world,” Snell added. “Then they restructured and that job went away. … Glen was looking for something to do, so he came over to Shreveport. We met there and he looked over the project and said, ‘Yeah, I’d like to give some time to it.’ Well, he ended up giving more than two years of his life to it.”

A ‘phenomenal’ achievement launches a network of support

Through the building of dozens of new homes and rehabilitation projects, the Allendale section of Shreveport went from an area where police advised The Fuller Center not to work to one where major crime has dropped by upwards of 80 percent since 2005.

“Glen really put the Allendale project on the map,” Snell said. “As a single achievement that was phenomenal. The neighborhood has changed. Glen was right there. He was the responsible party. He pulled the project together and got it off the ground. He got things started and got the first houses built.”

Thanks to Glen, what the Allendale rehabilitation ultimately did was serve as the springboard for The Fuller Center’s covenant partner network across the United States.

He will be sorely missed by friends, family and everyone that knew him.

“We’re now a nonprofit organization so we’re planning to do bigger and better outreach events,” Hampton said. “Our goal is for Takin’ It to the Streets to go national and now we’ve got the avenue to be able to do that.”

Hampton, a Free Methodist pastor, said he has shared Takin’ It to the Streets presentations with other Methodist churches and they have shown an interest in the ministry.

“Now they want to do Takin’ It to the Streets for our entire East Coast Conference, and that spans from Florida all the way up to New York state,” he said. “Our Western Conference in Portland, Ore., has gotten wind of it, and they want to do a presentation in October.”

The ministry that began in 2009 as a partnership with the Shreveport-Bossier Rescue Mission has branched out on its own and its first scheduled event since the separation is set for Saturday at Christ Temple Ministries in Shreveport.

“We’re not with the Rescue Mission anymore, but the Rescue Mission still supports us and they still show up for our events, they’re just not financially supportive,” Hampton said. “But they are supportive in many other ways by participating in our events and supplying us with food.”

Hampton said, “Through the efforts of our churches coming together, we’re expanding our potential for growth and our potential for resources.”

The Rev. Lawrence Hart Sr., pastor of Christ Temple Ministries, said the objective of the whole event is to touch people in the community.

“We’re asking organizations to bring whatever they feel people will need in the community. So it’s not just giving them food, it’s also clothes, furniture, care packages, household items,” said Hart, who’s also executive vice president of the outreach ministry’s board. “We are looking for other organizations to partner with us so we can do this on a larger scale.”

Hampton said several churches, businesses and resource organizations partner with them for the events, including Community Renewal International, the Fuller Center for Housing, LaCHIP and Ernest’s Orleans Restaurant.

Hampton said they have found that there is strength in numbers.

“When we combine and unify ourselves together, we are stronger,” he said.

“The upcoming event is going to be absolutely awesome,” Hampton said. “We have a lot more variety in this particular outreach because we have more participation from our African-American communities this time.”

Hampton said the event also will include motivational speakers, puppet shows and health presentations and a male choir, the Jubilee Singers.”

“This will be their first time getting exposure in the black community,” Hampton said. “Their goal is to be more inclusive in their group so they see an opportunity to come out and recruit more people for their choir.”

Hampton said as the ministry grows, it will get better and a more efficient.

“We open our arms and our hearts to anybody that comes,” he said. “What we’re doing is we’re taking the body of Christ into the heart of the community.”

See Pictures of Fuller Center Homes Blanketed By Snow

Northeastern Louisiana may see two to four inches of snow accumulation when a winter storm pushes its way through the area Tuesday night and Wednesday.

The National Weather Service in Shreveport has issued a winter storm watch from Wednesday morning until Wednesday afternoon for southern Arkansas and northern Louisiana.

Meteorologists have predicted falling temperatures and gusty winds and expect four to six inches of snow across southwest and south central Arkansas during Wednesday through early Wednesday evening. Further south the Interstate 20 corridor in Louisiana is predicted to get two to four inches of the white stuff with minor sleet accumulations also possible.

“It will start with rain on Wednesday and probably transition to snow,” Meteorologist Brandi Richardson said. “After this, things look like they may settle down for a bit.”

Last week, some area schools closed early on Thursday and all schools and universities were closed on Friday in anticipation of an icy wintery mix. Although the area saw some freezing rain and snow and a few icy bridges, there was no snow accumulation. The ice did weigh down tree limbs that fell causing sporadic power outages throughout the region, but no major damage was reported.

Weather service officials said people should take precaution when traveling because the snow may cause snow-packed roads and low visibility.

Tuesday’s high is expected to be 45 degrees, dropping to the low 30s after nightfall.

The weather service has predicted an 80 percent chance of snow and sleet for Wednesday.

Richardson said rain and sleet is expected before noon then snow. The high is expected to reach 36 degrees on Wednesday and dropping to 22 degrees over night. Meteorologists are predicting wind gust as high as 20 miles per hour.

After the storm pushes through, Thursday is expected to be mostly sunny with temperatures reaching the mid 30s. On Saturday and Sunday temperatures are expected to reach the mid to upper 50s with the next chance of rain predicted for Feb. 15.

Source: http://www.thenewsstar.com/article/20110208/NEWS01/102080318

“I feel like I’m doing such a great thing for the community,” Brown said. The Captain Shreve High School student was one of the volunteers during the Make A Difference Day.

The two-day event — sponsored locally by Community Renewal International and The Fuller Center for Housing — paired volunteers to do projects around the Allendale and Barksdale Annex neighborhoods.

Watch video at KTBS

What projects did the volunteers do?

Projects included painting, gardening and playground cleanup.

What did it look like nationally?

Saturday was part of the national Make A Difference Day and involved more than 3 million volunteers in hundreds of service projects.

The annual event is sponsored by USA Weekend magazine, the NBA and the NBA Players Association.

What about local projects?

On Saturday, volunteers painted the porch on a CRI Friendship House and added sealant to the deck and pergola structure. In the Barksdale Annex, about 10 volunteers worked in the flower and vegetable gardens at the Friendship House. They also did some cleanup and maintenance work at the KaBoom playground built near the house two years ago.

The Fuller Center’s project saw volunteers from LSU-Shreveport and Captain Shreve in Allendale. They painted three shotgun houses that will serve as museums and rental space for future businesses. The houses are next to the old L&M Grocery, the upstairs portion will become the new offices of the Fuller Center.

The downstairs will be a grocery store, said Lee Jeter Sr., executive director of the Fuller Center.

“The grocery store will have no alcohol and no tobacco,” he said. “People will be able to shop and reinvest in the community.”

© Icess Fernandez • ifernandez@gannett.com • October 24, 2010

The Fuller Center for Housing in Shreveport has given permanent refuge to former residents of New Orleans who lost everything as a result of Hurricane Katrina five years ago.

The Center provided opportunities for qualified families to build and move into homes to escape washed out neighborhoods where they once lived.

Executive Director Lee Jeter built houses for former New Orleans residents in Shreveport. He now sees the hurricane as a blessing. Mr. Jeter says, “I think we begin to heal as a state. I think Katrina was a blessing as much as it was a curse because it gave some individuals the opportunity, who would never have gotten out of the housing projects or out of New Orleans to have a different life, to do something different.”

By Michael Wesp – Online Editor/ KMSS News
Monday, August 30, 2010 – 7:18pm