House Of Help Whitworth Students Turn Dilapidated Home Into A Haven For Needy Schoolchildren

A desk sits in the place where an altar to Satan once stood.

The room formerly known as “The Black Room” is now bright white with cozy furniture. A graduate of Whitworth College lives in it.

But in the early ‘90s, a family lived at 2612 W. Gardner. When they abandoned the weed-infested house, they left stacks of letters and drawings glorifying Satan, and an arrest warrant naming one of the residents.

Since 1992, the house with a past has been home to Whitworth College graduates who teach Holmes Elementary School children in a program called “Homework Helpers.”

This is God’s house now.

“Where this house has come from is just amazing to me,” said Michelle Sanders, a Whitworth grad who is coordinating the programs this year.

Don Liebert and his wife Doris, an education professor at Whitworth, started the program to put recent college graduates in direct contact with the community.

In the summer of ‘92, the Lieberts stumbled across a boarded-up dilapidated home in West Central. The inside of the house was stable despite its shoddy exterior.

The house was for sale by auction. The minimum bid was $34,000. The Lieberts bid $1 over the minimum, and the house was theirs - paid for with contributions from seven different private donors.

“That first group of volunteers climbed the stairs and joined hands, sang the doxology and claimed the room for the Lord,” Sanders said.

Homework Helpers volunteers have been living in the house ever since. Volunteers receive financial help from Whitworth, First Presbyterian Church of Spokane and Whitworth Community Presbyterian to cover most of their living expenses.

The Homework Helpers project is coordinated by Westminster House, a ministry run by Whitworth College graduates. This year’s program started Tuesday.

Like previous Whitworth missioners, Sanders, Diana Van Belle, Nicole Marckovchick, Steve Dilley and Dan Wartman will spend the next year giving to the West Central neighborhood.

“There are really two purposes to the program,” said Doris Liebert, who also serves as an adviser to the students.

“The first is academic. Our students will help them with their spelling or math or whatever they might be working on. The other purpose is to establish friendships through a big-brother, big-sister model. It’s a great program both for our students and the kids who participate,” she said.

Volunteer Steve Dilley said working as part of the Westminster ministry program convinced him to become a Homework Helper. He and a group of students often delivered lunches to homeless shelters and low-income people in downtown Spokane in that program.

“I felt very good doing that,” Dilley said. “It was an eye-opener. They were really great people who had experienced tough times and needed help. That’s been my primary motivation here.”

Last week, a group of 20 Whitworth students met at the Westminster House for Community Building Day and spent Wednesday morning and afternoon cleaning up trash in the West Central area.

“We want to get students out of their comfort zone,” Sanders said. “It’s real easy to get insulated on a college campus.”

Two weeks ago, Gov. Gary Locke met with some of the Homework Helpers and praised them for their volunteer efforts in the community.

Locke also took the time to speak about the importance of community volunteerism.

“It’s providing opportunity for others,” Locke said. “Government can’t do it all. No matter how much money we have, there will never be enough money to meet everyday needs.”

Quoting President Clinton, Locke said: “The era of big government is over, the era of the big citizen must begin. We’re going to be a better society only if people get involved.”

Locke said citizens giving their time to others is just as effective as when they give money.

Whitworth President Bill Robinson said it’s important for students at the Presbyterian college to participate in the community.

“We want it to be a way of living right now for our students, not something you do later,” Robinson said. “We want to create a climate of seeing service as a way to live.”

The current group of Homework Helpers has only been in the Westminster House a couple of weeks and they’re still getting a feel for the neighborhood.

“From what I’ve heard about the West Central neighborhood and where it was six years ago, there seems to be definite progress,” said Sanders, who is from Portland.

“The community has definite needs, but it’s my impression that it responds to those needs,” she said.

And she hopes the Westminster House can help meet some of those needs as it has in the past.

“We’ve never been here to take the neighborhood by storm,” Sanders said. “We want to be a positive influence and help enhance the things that are good.”

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