SEBRING — In life, Faye Gordon made an impact on the lives of many children at First United Methodist Church here, church member Nancy Hensley says. Through the 1950s and 60s, Gordon taught Sunday school and served as counselor for the junior high Methodist Youth Foundation (MYF).

The Rev. Chuck Weaver, Tallahassee District superintendent and a member of Gordon’s MYF, said Gordon laid the foundations for his current leadership position within the Florida Conference when he was a member of her MYF group.

"Faye had a great influence on my and my wife’s beginning to show leadership in the church," he said.

And now, even after her death in September 1998, Gordon is still having a positive effect on children through "Faye’s Place," a transitional home for abused women and children that is a ministry of the Sebring church. The church inherited the house in which Faye’s Place is located from Gordon when she died, making the ministry a possibility.

Faye’s Place, which has apartments for two families, gives a single woman or a woman with children a place to live and restart her life after escaping an abusive situation. It is the step between a safe house and independent living, Hensley said.

"They may have no family to turn to for help, no job, no place to go except back to the abusive situation," she said. "At Faye’s Place, they live on their own, pay a small fee, and it gives them the chance to finish their education, go on a job search, figure out transportation and how to live on their own."

Joy Kruppa, a program manager with the Peace River Center for Personal Development, said this type of facility is unique and a good beginning to serving a larger need. "Very often, women go back into an abusive situation and the children are subjected to more violence because the women don’t have a choice or don’t know they have a choice," she said.

The Peace River Center is a not-for-profit community mental health organization in Polk, Highlands and Hardee counties that provides services for people who are mentally ill and those who need intervention due to a crisis, Kruppa said. It is leasing Faye’s Place for $1 per year and providing the case management and mental health services for the residents.

The center itself serves approximately 10,000 clients each year, with more than 800 receiving assistance through the Center’s two domestic violence shelters.

The Faye’s Place house is a two-story, wood-frame house built in the 1930s by Gordon’s family that is adjacent to the church property. When the family moved, they kept the house as a rental property. Eventually, it was abandoned.

"A committee was formed to figure out what to do with this dilapidated…house," Hensley said. "Should we tear it down, fix it up, rent it or do something that was an outreach to the community from the church?"

The church invited it neighbors to share their ideas for the house. When Kevin Roberts, executive director of the Highlands County’s Children’s Services Council, highlighted the need for transitional housing for victims of domestic violence, church members decided they could use the house to help meet that need.

Over the next six months, more than 50 church volunteers and many more from the community worked to restore the house, Hensley said. The church paid half the $47,000 cost of restoration; the Children’s Services Council’s foundation paid the rest.

Church members held a shower for the house, bringing everyday items residents would need as the gifts, Hensley said. Kids in the Sprouts children’s ministry bought two bedspreads for the house’s bunk beds and put them on the beds themselves.