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Rehab center seeks Amberwood space
By Jim Kilpatrick, Staff Writer
San Antonio based Teen Challenge of Texas, which owns the old Amberwood Care Center on 601 South Ohio Drive, will be opening a center to treat adults with all types of addictions. The organization is seeking a certificate of occupation from the city.
At a special city council meeting last Thursday, after an hour and 45 minute executive session, Jim Lewis, Mayor Pro Tem, delivered a brief statement to the assembled crowd.
“As you know, we have discussed privileged legal matters involving the project at 601 South Ohio,” he said. “We are going to do everything we are authorized to do, to ensure that this development is a compatible land use. We welcome input from the public as well as the landowners as the process moves forward.”
No one on the council would comment on what had been discussed.
According to their website the Teen Challenge is “not just drugs, or alcohol, it’s moral training.”
“We teach them life skills, like how to get a job,” corporate director of marketing R.D. Follis said. “We have an 86 percent recovery record.”
“Teen Challenge is a Christian residential program that takes 13-months to complete,” he said.
The facility in Celina would be for adult males and females but would also be open to children as well, Follis said.
“Some people are trying to make us what we aren’t,” said president and CEO of the organization R.E. Follis, “There was a time when we tried to address the drug and alcohol problem but we have gone past that.
The facility would offer training for various professions and training for the ministry, he said.
“We have people attending Southwestern Bible College in Waxahachie.” He said. “We have distance learning going on as well as a GED program.”
Some Celina residents, however, are concerned about the facility.
Tawnia King and Linda Elliot sent letters to the city council expressing their concerns and fears.
King contacted the main office in San Antonio about the project seeking answers to her questions.
“The evasiveness of the answers to many of my questions by Teen Challenge was most disconcerting,” she said. “When asked about the facility, I was told it was going to be a discipleship outreach center, when in fact, it is a drug rehab/alcohol rehab alternative program.”
Elliot’s main concern was safety.
“I am very concerned about safety of myself, my neighbors, and our elementary school, not to mention the community as a whole,” she said.
Representatives of Teen Challenge, on the other hand, say they have been accepted by residents.
“We have been warmly received by the people in Celina,” CFO of Teen Challenge Jerrod Flanagan said.”
The Rev. David Wilkerson created the Teen Challenge program in New York City in 1958. He later co-authored the novel “The Cross and the Switchblade” in 1963 and later the novel was made into a movie with the same title in1969.
The growth of the program has spread over the years with 170 facilities in the United States and to six continents.
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