A Ruskin charity that serves hundreds of South County’s hungry and homeless every week is praying for a miracle in the new year that will allow it to remain at its home on East College Avenue.
The church that now owns the property is hopeful those prayers will be answered and that the charity will be able to stay.
Home to The Lord’s Lighthouse Ministry, the lot is for sale for $675,000 by its owners, St. John the Divine Episcopal Church, which decided last year that the church could not afford two campuses. St. John’s had opened a new church in Sun City Center in 2009.
But while no one has made an official bid on the lot, some tentative inquiries have church leaders hoping a new buyer will allow The Lord’s Lighthouse Ministry to remain on the site.
“The property is for sale, but we have made sure the Lighthouse is in place and we are still working on future plans that we trust will enable the Lighthouse to remain there indefinitely,” said Edward C. Brown, the senior warden at St. John’s.
“It depends who the buyer is,” Brown said. “There are some buyers who would be amenable to a situation where the Lighthouse could continue to operate there. That is what we are striving for. I have nothing specific to report, but that is our objective.”
This would be music to the ears of Pastor William and Dora Cruz, who opened The Lord’s Lighthouse in 2008 and have been actively looking for a new home for months. The charity helps feed and clothe more than 300 people a week.
The ministry offers food, clothing and household items, and services such as translation, advocacy and application assistance for Medicaid, food stamps and benefits. In October, the Ministry provided food and services for 1,182 families.
“Maybe our prayers will be answered and The Lord’s Lighthouse can continue the ministry with the poor,” Dora Cruz said. “A Realtor called us and asked us why we didn’t buy the property, but when we heard the price I told them we didn’t have that kind of money.”
St. John’s had planned to close the College Avenue church in 2008 and move into a larger facility. But because of difficulties with zoning issues at the time, the church opted to maintain both campuses.
Brown said: “We kept one contemporary service at 9 a.m. on Sundays there [at College Aveue] and gave it five years to see if it was a viable plan. But at the end of the five years, we were disappointed in our expectations of growth there, and expenses were growing larger.”
Hungry families begin lining up at the Lighthouse’s pantry before 7 a.m. Tuesday mornings, food distribution day. Each family receives a 10-pound bag of food including beans, rice and tortillas and anything else that might have been donated that week. Most of the food is gone by 10 a.m.
“There is a great need here in Ruskin,” Dora Cruz said.
Cruz and her husband have been ministering to the poor since 1952, founding missions throughout the United States and Puerto Rico, including the Good Samaritan and Beth El missions in South County.
Retiring in 2008 from Good Samaritan, 25 years after they founded it, Dora and William thought they were ready to let others take the lead in helping the poor. But although they were both in their late 70s at the time, they found they couldn’t stay away from mission work.
The Lord’s Lighthouse, 815 East College Ave., is always looking for donations of food, clothing and furniture. Financial donations are especially welcome because they can be leveraged to buy food by the pound from local suppliers. For more information, call 813-641-7100 or 813-321-9723 or visit the group’s website, www.lordslighthouse.org.