This couple plans to turn former Pasco homeless shelter into a place of hope for homeless women

The years of use at the former Tri-City Union Gospel Mission men’s shelter are easy to see.

Decades of feet have worn away the flooring until the wood shows through. Walls, furniture and kitchen tools are well worn.

But Amanda and Devin Lorraine envision a place of hope for women stuck in poverty.

“This wall, this wall and that wall are all coming out,” Devin points around the entryway of what has been for decades the men’s shelter. “Underneath this old vinyl is all shiplap wood. It’s going to be sanded down and varnished and brought back to its original look.”

Their nonprofit, Grace Kitchen, just signed a contract to buy the building from the mission and are beginning their remodel with the help of volunteers next week.

Amanda has seen the cycles of poverty and bad relationships that leave many women trapped. If people hadn’t come into her life and shown her God’s love and compassion, she said she might still be stuck.

Her own journey makes her want to help the women she sees when she volunteers at the women’s and children’s shelter.

She has been a volunteer for six years.

“They need mentoring and they need friendship because many of these women have lived cycles of destructive patterns for their entire life, so they’ve never had a friend,” Amanda said. “Second, they need employment. They faced a lot of trauma in their life and obstacles that hinder them from being employable.”

They plan to put a training program in place to help the women become self-sufficient so they don’t need to rely on government programs or bad relationships to survive.

Helping women out of poverty

The Lorraines plan to start a program similar to Spokane’s Christ Kitchen and bring it to the Second Avenue building in Pasco. The Spokane program began when Jan Bowes Martinez, a therapist, realized many of the women she saw seemed alone, she told the Spokesman-Review in 2008.

Martinez started with a Bible study in 1998, but when no one came, she started paying women minimum wage to package a dry soup mix.

The experiment turned into a bustling nonprofit that now stocks soup, bread and beverage mixes on grocery store shelves, provides catering and a full line of gift baskets.

Where Christ Kitchen started with soup mixes, the women at Grace Kitchen are making spice rubs used for smoking meat.

They plan to use those to produce meals that can be incorporated into catering and even a food truck.

Behind all of this they plan to start a training program, helping the women with resumes, interviewing and other job skills.

For now they are starting small. They hope to bring in women once a month as volunteers and pay three women full time to join the program.

When Amanda was teaching at the shelter, 90 percent of the women in her class said they would show up whether they can be paid or not.

“I’ve spent a lot of time at Christ Kitchen and these women take so much pride in the products that they’re making,” she said. “Then they see them on the shelves at Yoke’s and Rosauers, it’s pretty phenomenal.”

Building momentum

Amanda and Devin began raising money for the project about a year and a half ago. They got support from Christ Kitchen, and other individual donors and churches.

Their latest breakthrough came after Amanda decided to ask the mission if she could use the building to start her program. It sat empty for the last year after the mission finished its new men’s shelter on Fourth Avenue.

“Devin and I have been involved with the Union Gospel Mission for many years, and honestly, all I can say is that it’s a miracle,” she said. “I called them and I said, ‘I would like to purchase this building,’ and they gave it to me for a very low cost.”

The mission agreed to partner with them and volunteers from The Living Room Community Church were at the building Thursday to talk about the renovations.

While they are moving forward, there are continuing to look for businesses willing to employ the women when they finish their training at Grace Kitchen.

While it may take a while before the women are ready to move into a new job, the Lorraines said they don’t want Grace Kitchen to be the final stop for these women’s careers.

“They need a second chance in life,” Amanda said. “Something they can put on their resume.”

They hope to be finished with construction and ready to start with their first employees this spring.

Anyone interested in helping Grace Kitchen can make a donation through PayPal at paypal.me/gracekitchen or mail checks to 8524 W. Gage Blvd., Suite A 181, Kennewick, WA 99336.