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Lack of access is costing Conference
November, 2000
The Massachusetts Conference this year has lost approximately 20 percent of the revenue from the rental of its Framingham meeting facility due to a lack of access for the disabled.
According to site manager Diane Montgomery, the three biggest users of the site have stopped scheduling their monthly and sometimes twice-monthly meetings there. They included a state alcohol and drug abuse group, a private leadership training organization and an international advocacy group for the mentally challenged.
All three organizations said they have policies that state they must meet in accessible facilities, so could no longer use the Conference center. Last year, the three groups accounted for $19,000 of the $95,000 the center raised through rental fees.
“Many other groups call for information, and when they find out we’re not accessible they lose interest,” Montgomery said. “State agencies in particular cannot use inaccessible facilities.”
Edwards House, the main meeting facility at the Conference center, has only one bathroom on the first floor, and it is too small to be used by someone in a wheelchair. Also, the only entrance to the house that does not have stairs is to the dining room, and the only way for a wheelchair-user to get from there to the other meeting rooms in the house is through the kitchen.
The house’s bedrooms, used for overnight retreats, are all on the second floor with no elevator access. On at least two occasions, a wheelchair- user at an overnight retreat slept in an enclosed porch on a couch because she could not get to the bedrooms.
Edwards House is scheduled to receive $600,000 from The Gift and The Promise Campaign for renovations which would include the installation of an elevator, three new first floor bathrooms and a hallway providing access to all the meeting rooms.
According to a schedule approved by the Conference Board of Directors, that allocation is due to be made once the capital campaign has received $4 million. So far, $2.4 million has been received.
“I encourage those churches who have not yet paid their Gift and Promise pledges to do so as soon as they are able because projects like the work at Edwards House need to happen,” said Interim Conference Minister and President Erwin R. Bode.
“We’ve come a long way in our Gift and Promise contributions, and we’ve accomplished a great deal. And yet there is still so much we need to do,” he said.
Click here to see highlights of the Gift and Promise allocations made to date.
