Volunteers step up to finish women's shelter

Peggy Christensen has spent a lifetime helping people. Now many people — including some of the homeless residents she has embraced — are pitching in to help make her dream of a women and children’s shelter come true.

Construction is well underway on Peggy’s House at the corner of Fifth Avenue and First Street West in Kalispell. The 4,000-square-foot, nine-bedroom, five-bath home is the latest project of A Ray of Hope, a nonprofit Christian ministry that also operates a thrift store and a men’s shelter in the same area.

Christensen started A Ray of Hope 18 years ago on little more than a wing and a prayer — lots of prayers. She has shepherded the ministry for the homeless and downtrodden from the get-go, but a few months ago was diagnosed with multiple cancers throughout her body. She recently was hospitalized in Missoula and is residing at another Ray of Hope shelter in Helmville while she deals with treatment. The diagnosis has waylaid her ability to be involved with the shelter project.

Now others are stepping up to reach the finish line for Peggy’s House.

“We’re in a rush to get this done,” said Wayne Appl, a resident of A Ray of Hope men’s shelter and coordinator of fundraising and outreach. “We are all working in overdrive to make this wish come true. It is her greatest aspiration to get the shelter done.”

A Ray of Hope needs about $100,000 to complete Peggy’s House, which will shelter up to 40 women and children. Because it’s a faith-based ministry, A Ray of Hope does not get government funding and relies on donations from individuals and other funding sources that support the Christian ministry.

Brenda Roskos, a volunteer and Christensen’s personal assistant, said Christensen has a deep-rooted vision for the shelter that goes well beyond providing temporary housing for women and children. Her mission always has been to give people “a hand up, not a handout,” and to that end, women who use the new shelter will learn life skills through classes on cooking, financial counseling and parenting.

Women will be served on an individual basis, Roskos said. Some women may be there a short time; others may require a longer stay.

“As a biblically-based shelter there will be Bible studies, biblical counseling and prayer,” Roskos said.

Dave McLean, A Ray of Hope trustee who has been an integral part of the building project, said the new shelter is valued at $400,000, but the total cost will be about a third of that because of volunteer help and in-kind donations.

CHRISTENSEN’S LIFELONG mission to help the homeless and those in need has always been a leap of faith. She and her husband Bob helped raise 36 foster children in addition to their own two sons.

“This knowledge and expertise helped her to guide single mothers in her first ministry in the Flathead,” Roskos said, recalling how Christensen started her local ministry in a room at the Christian Center in Kalispell. The ministry’s original focus — as relevant now as it was then — is helping families become Christ-centered, functioning members of the community.

The Christensens operated their lay ministry for several years before setting up a second-hand store on U.S. 2 in Evergreen in 1999. Eventually they started a men’s shelter in Kalispell and began a thrift store in the former Flathead Food Bank Building. Through the years Christensen and other volunteers have taught classes and offered counseling on how to budget household finances.

When people show up at A Ray of Hope’s doorstep, they often have nowhere else to turn.

That was the case for Rachelle Thompson, a nursing-school graduate who became addicted to meth and lost everything — her home, access to her children, her job. She spent 45 days in a drug-treatment program in Billings, but wound up back on the street over the winter.

Thompson showed up at A Ray of Hope three months ago.

“I had no idea about what this place was about, but it got me out of Billings and I had nothing left to lose anyway,” she said.

Overcoming her addiction is still a daily battle, but Thompson said she’s healing at A Ray of Hope. Life is better.

“I see a future,” she said.

Thompson is using her 20 hours of required service work each week to help with the fundraising for the new shelter.

During a 2014 Inter Lake interview Christensen said it doesn’t always take a lot of money to stabilize people enough to keep them in their housing. One mortgage payment may stop foreclosure, or a set of tires may save a job.

A Ray of Hope always has offered a variety of services that can include rent subsidy and help with managing food stamps and other income until a person is able to achieve financial independence. Sometimes it’s giving a person a haircut or the proper attire to interview for a job. Others may need a boost getting their high-school equivalency diploma.

Roskos said she’s heard from more than one person who has said “if not for Peggy Christensen, I’d be dead.”

“Peggy is a powerhouse, so focused on giving,” she added.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.

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How you can help

A Ray of Hope is one of the participating organizations in Flathead Gives, a 24-hour fundraising campaign that wraps up today at 6 p.m. The online giving event at www.flatheadgives.org is hosted by Flathead Community Foundation and Northwest Montana United Way, and builds awareness and raises funds for important causes in the community.

Donations to A Ray of Hope for the women and children’s shelter also may be sent to P.O. Box 5407, Kalispell, MT 59903.

Another fundraiser to benefit the shelter is a May 22 concert at Easthaven Baptist Church by violin virtuoso Wai Mizutani. The concert begins at 7 p.m. at the church, 2010 Whitefish Stage Road.

The Flathead Southerners will be donating all proceeds from a raffle and silent auction at the annual catfish fry on June 25 to the shelter. That event starts at 4:30 p.m. on June 25 at the Vista Linda Pavilion in Somers.

If you can contribute volunteer time and construction expertise for the shelter project, call A Ray of Hope at 406-755-4673.