(buffalonews.com) When the typical church talks about “saving,†the focus usually is on souls.
But when it comes to saving neighborhoods, an examination of major economic-development initiatives on Buffalo’s East Side shows the black church — not business leaders — as the catalyst for most of it.
In the last 10 years, African-American churches have spent at least $70 million on economic-development projects in Buffalo, including:
• A $54 million project spearheaded by St. John Baptist Church in 36 blocks of the Fruit Belt. It includes a hospice, 28 new town homes and seven single-family homes.
• The Jefferson Marketplace, a business incubator that includes an M&T Bank branch and three minority-owned businesses that opened last September across from the Tops Market on Jefferson Avenue. The project cost $1.5 million and is part of about $7 million in development that Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church estimates it has invested over the last decade.
• The Subway Sandwich Shop in which True Bethel Baptist Church invested $250,000 and which opened three years ago in the church at 907 E. Ferry St.
• The Greater Refuge Temple Plaza on Jefferson, a roughly $300,000 miniplaza that opened four years ago and houses several minority-owned business.
Those involved and outside experts say this economic focus is the natural outgrowth of the church’s historic leadership role in the black community. The perception among African- Americans, they added, is that the church must provide what they cannot get from other institutions. (more…)
#
