XENIA — The new owners of the former Greene County Career Center building in Xenia Township are planning a massive transformation in the coming months.
The end result could be a very positive one for the community. The three local business owners — Kip Morris, Chris Adams, and Doug Van Dyke — who purchased the 2960 W. Enon Road complex are formalizing plans to turn it into a multi-functional trade school and recovery center this fall. A business incubator and temporary housing available to those in need will also be included.
The group’s newly-formed non-profit organization, the Emerge Recovery & Trades Initiative, will handle all the day-to-day operations of the property. The site is 48-acres in size and includes several buildings, a large outdoor campus area, and a four-acre scenic freshwater pond.
In addition to the trade school, there will be a wide-range of programs aimed at helping men and women in recovery in addition to vulnerable youth who are at-risk and young adults leaving foster care.
“We are hoping to be in the place in May, or no later than the first week of June,” Morris said.
The group purchased the property for $1.6 million at public auction in early March. The property contains around 243,400 square feet of indoor space.
“We are all in long-term recovery ourselves, and have a heart for helping people coming out of that lifestyle,” Morris said. “Because we’ve all been blessed in our businesses and had success helping people in need, we decided to try to do this on a much larger scale, to help as many people as possible.”
In addition to schooling in plumbing, roofing and HVAC work, with real-world work experience in those respective fields, the property will have a men’s recovery center and a women’s recovery center that will include separate temporary housing.
His Hope Adult & Teen Challenge — a faith-based men’s residential recovery program operated by Rusty Toadvine — will run the men’s program. Cynthia Stemple and Melissa Adams will be in charge of the women’s program, which is a new program called Hope Hub.
The Hope Hub looks to provide additional educational opportunities for people in recovery. It seeks to help women develop and maintain healthy behavior patterns, learn self-care, financial literacy, and more. It also wants to focus on making its program a “safe grace space” where women can always come back to find help and grace.
The group is currently seeking qualified candidates to hire an executive director to run the non-profit and the entire operation and also looking for other area businesses that could benefit from joining its efforts to transform lives.
Area businesses interested in joining the endeavor will be offered low-cost rent, discounted business services, and paid and unpaid internships performed by the people completing the on-site recovery and foster care emancipation programs, in addition to a wide range of business development and growth tools that will help new or pre-existing entrepreneurs expand their business or non-profit and function at a higher level while at the same time helping people in need.
“How all this came to be — we have to give all the credit to God,” Morris said. “Without God’s help, none of this would be possible. Although we are taking a financial risk, we decided it would be worth it. There is a high potential that we could end up helping a lot of people out.”
