ROGERS — Visitors streamed through rooms with design schemes ranging from all pink to safari print at Saving Grace on Sunday.

The facilities in the Center for Nonprofits will house up to 14 young women between ages 18 and 24 who have become too old for foster care or are homeless.

Two resident assistants will live with them.

The ministry held an open house Sunday. They’re eyeing the first part of January as the opening date, Executive Director Becky Sha◊er said.

Saving Grace’s biggest need at this point is people committed to praying for the ministry, she said, but they also need people committed to making donations.

Church and family groups sponsored the rooms, which are all unique. Donors even came through for small lastminute items Saving Grace didn’t think would get donated, Sha◊er said.

“It really has been community, faith (and) corporations coming together to make this work,” she said.

Volunteers such as Gwen Wiley led visitors on tours Sunday.

She led the way through a study room with stained-glass windows, past a courtyard with plants and patio furniture and into a dining room.

Motivational signs pepper the walls.

The women will cook their own meals in a green kitchen with black cabinets and polkadotted rugs.

“There is no institutional feel about this facility, this home, at all,” Wiley said.

The facilities occupy space that used to be a convent. Some of the original wooden floors are still present in a corner where the business office is housed.

It has a separate entrance so those coming to do business aren’t walking through the women’s home, Wiley said.

The building’s history is scattered throughout the home. The resident assistants’ rooms have reupholstered nuns’ rockingchairs. Original wooden pews line some of the hallways.

A large common room features a game table, books and big-screen television.

Each bedroom has a bed, dresser, closet and sink area. Volunteer Jan Shinall sponsored one room and decorated several others in cases where people wanted to sponsor a room but not shop themselves.

“The neat thing about the house, from the paint to the new doorknobs ... everything has been donated,” she said.

The women will stay at Saving Grace for di◊ering time periods depending on the woman, Shaffer said.

Vocational training and counseling will be provided.

News, Pages 1 on 11/09/2009

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