Tanna Dawson Center new Gulf Stream Association ministry

Life, job skills classes postponed after Hurricanes Katrina, Wilma

Nov 29, 2005

PLANTATION (FBC)—Years ago, Al and Tanna Dawson planted an orchid in their yard in Fort Lauderdale as a memento of one of their trips to Hawaii to lead revival meetings. Over the years, the orchids have intertwined with oak tree branches, their long stems cascading blossoms to the ground.

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Tanna Dawson (l), visits Gulf Stream Baptist Association’s new community ministry center named in her honor, operated by center director Una Beadle. FBC photo

Now, one of those orchid blossoms serves as a symbol of renewal for Gulf Stream Baptist Association’s new community ministry center named in honor of Tanna Dawson, wife of Gulf Stream’s first director of missions, A.D. Dawson.

Located in the former offices of Gulf Stream Baptist Association at 20 NW 46th Ave. in Plantation, the Tanna F. Dawson Community Ministry Center held its opening celebration Sept. 30, on Tanna’s birthday.

“It was the best birthday present I could have received,” she recalled. “I received birthday cards with checks in them—not for me but to help the center.”

Since its opening, the center has distributed school supplies to families in need, offered canned goods through its food pantry and been a source of rental assistance or referrals.

The center currently receives about 20 calls a week from individuals who have been referred to the center by Gulf Stream churches, said Una Beadle, center director and member of Mt. Hermon Community Baptist Church in Sunrise.

Additional services, such as offering life and job skills classes, have been rescheduled to January because of Hurricane Wilma, but the food and rental assistance have been of particular use to those experiencing prolonged hardships because of the storm, Beadle said.

Kay Eickhoff (l), a volunteer from Atlantic Baptist Church in Margate, shows Tanna Dawson an outfit in the center’s New Beginnings boutique as part of its Christian Job Corps ministries. FBC photo

Some people had just recovered from the aftereffects of Katrina before being affected again by Wilma, she said.

The center was not damaged but clean-up to its grounds was needed from fallen trees and brush. After the center received a yard clean-up estimate of several thousand dollars, a neighbor volunteered several weekends to clean-up the center’s yard at no charge, said Janet Maple, a Mission Service Corps volunteer with the association and member of Coral Baptist Church in Coral Springs.

“God has sent volunteers to us just when we have needed them,” said Maple, who also volunteers at the association’s Living Waters clinic at Immanuel Baptist Church in Fort Lauderdale. As a teenager at First Baptist Church, Pompano Beach, she attended revival meetings in which Al Dawson preached and Tanna played the organ. Now, she and her husband, David, are planning to lead a Bible study at the center in January.

Israel Ramirez, a member of First Baptist Church in Weston, coordinated remodeling efforts and decorated the facility, including painting a “Tree of Life” on a foyer hall that contains the names of volunteers and contributors on gold leaves and establishing a children’s play room so parents can have access to child care while they attend classes at the center. The walls of “Izzy’s children’s room” are covered with colorful paintings of animals that Ramirez drew.

The Tanna F. Dawson Community Ministry Center also contains a dress for success boutique called New Beginnings in association with its Christian Women’s and Men’s Job Corps ministries. The nationally registered Job Corps site contains work-appropriate clothing that has been donated for men and women, including neatly displayed hangers of clothing and racks of shoes.

Several computers are lined up in the center’s conference room, ready for training classes in January. In addition to computer skills classes and job preparation training, the center will offer classes in conversational English, literacy and parenting, as well as family crisis counseling services.

Several churches and their WMU groups have included the center as one of their outreach projects. The center collects items for specialty needs, such as health kits, hygiene kits, new mother’s kits, small children’s kits, nursing home kits, back to school packages and New Beginnings clothing items.

With a donation of $300 or higher, individuals or organizations can sponsor a room of the center.

To donate items or to volunteer, call the center at 954-583-0339.

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