BY KATHY CHANG
Staff Writer
EDISON — This weekend the Minne B. Veal Recreation Center, which holds a variety of adult, teen and children activities, is getting an all-expense-paid facelift courtesy of the Liquid Church, one of New Jersey’s fastest growing Christian churches.
Restoration work at the Minnie B. Veal Recreation Center, which is located at 1070 Grove Ave., includes fresh paint, minor repairs and new gardens.
The center was built in the early 1990s and named after Minnie B. Veal, who was known for developing classes for the children who lived in Potter’s Crossing, a neighborhood that was predominantly African American spanning a two-mile radius of Grove Avenue and Inman Avenue prior to an urban renewal program in the 1970s.
It is one of five summer outreach projects in five New Jersey counties that the Morristown-based Liquid Church has planned for the weekend of July 15 and 16.
To accomplish this two-day feat, the Liquid Church is marshaling some 1,500 volunteers, including church members and area residents who will pitch in to help.
“We are grateful to the Liquid Church for making our recreation center one of the beneficiaries of its summer outreach effort,” said Mayor Thomas Lankey. “Minnie Veal is a widely-used venue for many of our youth programs and it is a popular community meeting place.”
Lankey further said it is gratifying for the Christian organization to take such a keen interest in their community and make such a generous investment of labor, time and materials.
Liquid Church volunteers will be repainting the interior of the Minnie B. Veal Center, including the gymnasium, public areas and classrooms, and replacing broken or missing ceiling tiles.
Outside, they will power-wash the building’s exterior; repair a swing-set and basketball court; and weed, mulch and replant flower gardens.
“You’ll often hear us at Liquid Church say that serving others is the heartbeat of our church,” said Tim Lucas, the church’s lead pastor. “We’re new members of the Edison community, and we want to serve our neighbors well.”
For the outreach, the church is providing paint and supplies, bringing all the necessary tools and materials, supplying mulch and new plants and bringing volunteer manpower, Lucas said.
The volunteer effort represents a $12,000 investment in the recreation center, part of an estimated $95,000 contribution that the Liquid Church is making that weekend to various communities with its five outreach projects, Lucas said.
“Our summer outreach projects are an enormous undertaking, but this is our way of giving back to the communities we serve,” Lucas said.
The Liquid Church holds weekly Sunday services at the Sheraton on Raritan Center Parkway in Edison. The church also holds Sunday services in Essex, Morris, Somerset and Union counties.
On another note, township officials are currently exploring ways to either rehabilitate the Dorothy K. Drwal Stelton Community Center, which is located at 328 Plainfield Ave. and is the other community center in the township, and/or seek to relocate its services and programs to another site.
Stelton is a former public school built in the 1930s and was turned over to the township in the 1980s.