People for Care and Learning Dedicates New Facility
People for Care and Learning, a Cleveland-based non-governmental organization formed to combat poverty and address solutions for impoverished families, celebrated the opening of its new office facilities with a ribbon-cutting last week, according to Dr. Fred Garmon, executive director. The facility is being shared with a partner organization, Men and Women of Action.
Organized in 2002 primarily for the purpose of assisting children, widows and broken families in Southeast Asia, PCL has brought its anti-poverty efforts home to Southeast Tennessee in the last couple of years and is presently involved in Cleveland projects as well as those in Asia.
“Although we are an independent agency with a board of directors comprised of men and women from various church backgrounds, we are essentially a creation of the Church of God,” Garmon explained.
“The church’s missionaries often help with quality of life issues by establishing orphanages and training centers, but when a country’s government does not permit church organizations to enter, an organization like PCL may be allowed to function.”
People for Care and Learning was instituted for the purpose of “Inspiring Hope and Empowering Potential” in Cambodia. They have expanded operations to Myanmar, Bhutan and the tsunami zone of Sri Lanka.
“It occurred to members of our board that ‘the light that shines farthest shines brightest at home,'” Garmon said, “so we have also adopted projects for community well-being here in Cleveland.”
PCL is working with the Caring Place in the construction of their new facilities, providing state-of-the-art playgrounds in Habitat for Humanity’s new Century Village and on the Greenway, and is exploring further opportunities.
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Hugh Carver (left) and Fred Garmon at the dedication. |
The founder of PCL was Robert D. Pace, who retired in 2006. Pace had long envisioned an organization that could go where the church was not permitted in order to establish orphanages, schools, feeding centers, vocational training institutes, widows’ learning centers, medical centers and provide leadership training.
Pace founded Men and Women of Action in 1984, an agency that takes teams to sites in the U.S. and overseas where they assist in the construction of churches, parsonages, orphanages and other buildings, provide disaster relief and other humanitarian assistance. The teams help with more than 100 such projects each year. Hugh Carver directs MWOA.
“Bob Pace is one of those rare, visionary, innovative leaders who sees a need and devises a way to meet it,” Garmon said. “Today PCL and Men and Women of Action are part of his legacy.”
While Men and Women of Action is an official church agency, PCL operates as an independent entity. PCL is presently working with the government of Cambodia and the United Nations in a poverty reduction program that provides housing for the poorest of the poor in the nation. They have constructed and staffed medical clinics in rural regions, including a floating clinic on Tonle Sap Lake, the largest lake in Southeast Asia, where thousands live in floating villages. They operate children’s homes, staffed largely by widows who would otherwise have no source of income.
The organization also provides vocational training, including computer instruction. Their personnel teach English in high schools in Cambodia.
PCL’s enterprises also include “voluntourism,” professionals taking short-term trips to Cambodia to offer medical and dental services.
The board of directors is made up of business men and women from the Church of God, Church of God of Prophecy and Baptist backgrounds, and includes members who live in Singapore and Cambodia.
PCL and its partner agency, Men and Women of Action, are locarted at 4235 T.L. Rogers Lane N.E., just off Stuart Road. The building, now enlarged, was formerly the Hiwassee Grill restaurant.
