Building a strong community

Photo by Nathan Gray

Charles Thompson plants flowers outside of a building at the New Life Community Center that opens today in Honea Path.

Photo by Nathan Gray

Charles Thompson puts a roof on a building at the New Life Community Center, which he helped construct. The center is aiming to help those in need and opens today.

HONEA PATH — Charles Thompson, an Anderson County native, travels the world and has his family and his health — everything he could ever want.

At 73, this builder is working for a different kind of paycheck. He’s spent the last couple of years volunteering his time to clear a 5-acre piece of land across the street from New Broadmouth Baptist Church in Honea Path. His goal: build a community center there to help those who don’t have what they need.

Nearly every day, he’s up at daylight, on the land, hammering away, and then packs up his tools around sundown. Today, Thompson will celebrate with the community the result of two years’ hard work with a grand opening of the center.

“I’ve been blessed with much more than what I need,” Thompson said. “So I just want to spend the rest of my time walking in the will of God. I want to help other people.”

A graduate of Westside High School in Anderson, Thompson joined the U.S. Air Force, which took him away from his hometown. He spent 14 years, to be exact, living overseas. In his travels, he found people who were in need.

On a trip to New Mexico he found more than 30 children living in a barn. He helped start a community center there. He’s built about four such centers from the ground up, and he’s helped several other struggling, nonprofit agencies, he said.

On a trip to Anderson County, while visiting family, he saw another sight that hurt his heart, he said. People were standing in line on Fant Street in Anderson waiting for medical help at the Anderson Free Clinic.

“I seen the need for a nice place for people to come get assistance without them having to stand in long lines,” Thompson said.

So he went to the church he grew up in, New Broadmouth Baptist Church in Honea Path, the place where is mother is laid to rest. There was some land there, covered with trees, that wasn’t being used for anything.

“I was so happy to hear that someone wanted to do something with the land,” the Rev. Jeremiah Palmer said. “We’ve had it about 15 years. I told him it would be years down the line before we could actually develop the land.”

So Thompson had a deal for the church: he would build on the land and gather the volunteers for the project if the members would let him use the land. There would be no cost — just faith and a giving spirit.

Palmer said he knew Thompson was a contractor and had seen some of his work before he and the church made the decision to hand over the use of the property. In October 2007, Thompson showed up at the site with a band of volunteers, armed with axes and chainsaws.

“He’s volunteered all his time. He’s flown back and forth between here and California, where he lives now, and he’s not asked us for a dime,” Palmer said. “He’s a God-sent man to do all these things.”

There are several buildings on the property now where they will keep items stored — food, clothing and furniture — and the church members have already started giving out the items to those in need, Palmer and Thompson said.

Thompson has also built an outdoor pavilion and two large barbecue pits there for cookouts. A walking track is on the land too. In the coming years, Thompson and Palmer said, they hope to add more to the site. They want to offer basic medical services, such as dental care and eye exams at the site, as well as provide a bookstore, a nursery for small children and other services, Palmer said.

“All of this is about community,” Palmer said.