A faith-based nonprofit announced it is closing its doors after serving the Hurst-Euless-Bedford area for 28 years.
Mission Central board member Erick Arellano announced the nonprofit’s closure in an April 17 Facebook post with Matt Ybanez, a pastor with First United Methodist Church of Hurst. Arellano told Ybanez in the video that the nonprofit struggled to secure the funding needed to keep the organization in business.
“This is all pretty emotional,” Arellano said in the video. “It’s difficult to have come this far and then to see this end. A lot of it was a bit like mourning.”
Mission Central helped on average 650 families a month through its food pantries, after-school tutoring, health services, legal assistance and adult education classes. There’s no firm date set for when all operations will stop, Executive Director Catherine Hollis told the Fort Worth Report. Hollis said she is currently trying to talk with churches and neighboring organizations about taking over its programs.
“I mourn for our guests, the people that we serve,” Hollis said. “There’s going to be this absence of food services, but also this absence of a place where they know they can come and be treated in a way sometimes they don’t get treated in other places.”
‘We’ve pinched every penny’
Stephen Tally, board president for Mission Central, said in a Feb. 19 statement that the increased need in the community and costs to keep operations running left the nonprofit “without a safety net of financial reserves.”
Mission Central’s 990 tax filings reveal inconsistent net income figures in recent years. In 2022, the nonprofit’s revenue was $1,668,148, with expenses of $1,708,880. The organization lost $40,732 that year.
‘We’ve pinched every penny we can to make up for that, but pinching pennies won’t help when we continue to see the needs grow,” Tally wrote.
About 6 out of 10 students in the Hurst-Euless-Bedford Independent School District are considered low-income, according to 2022-23 data from the Texas Education Agency. The academic year prior, that number was only 4 out of 10 students.
Mission Central operated out of a rented space in a strip mall located on East Pipeline Road. Hollis said increases in property insurance, rising labor costs and a lack of funding are all factors that led to the nonprofit’s closure.
Mission Central’s closure underscores financial challenges facing nonprofits across the nation, said Barbara Clark-Galupi, publisher of Dallas Fort Worth Nonprofit Business Journal.
“All of these things come in with the normal battles for funding and donors and the hearts and wallets of individuals to contribute to your organization,” Clark-Galupi said.
Churches, organizations stepping in
Mission Central was founded by members and staff of First United Methodist Church of Hurst in 1996 to address the growing needs of families at the poverty level.
The initiative became a nonprofit in 2003 after other churches and organizations wanted to take part in addressing the various needs of residents in the Hurst, Euless and Bedford areas, according to its mission statement.
With the closing of Mission Central, First United Methodist Church of Hurst will no longer be a host site for the Mobile Food Pantry, according to the Facebook post. However, the church plans to work with the nonprofit’s board of directors about how members of the church can fill the gaps after the closure.
The last day for the Mission Central’s food pantry was April 19. The final day the nonprofit will provide its after-school tutoring program will be April 25, Hollis said. However, she is currently working on securing an organization to take over the tutoring program as well as others the community has relied upon for so many years.
Marissa Greene is a Report for America corps member, covering faith for the Fort Worth Report. You can contact her at marissa.greene@fortworthreport.org or @marissaygreene. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.